the-conversation-pod

[the-conversation-pod]

Dispatch! (The Ossan's Love Episode)

And we're back!

NiNi and Ben bring our friend @twig-tea to the show to talk about the entire Ossan's Love series. We'll talk about the way this franchise evolves over time, the difficulties of comedy, what it means to love older queer men, and how this show tackles the complexities of family and masculinity.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction and Some Context 00:06:25 - Ossan’s Love History and Summary 00:13:42 - The Characters 00:28:23 - Love or Dead and In The Sky 00:39:00 - Ossan’s Love Returns 00:45:33 - Final Thoughts and Ratings

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Introduction and Some Context

Ben

And we're back! 

This week, we are covering all of Ossan's Love, from 2016 through 2024. We have brought on a special guest for this special episode as we're going to talk about the longest-running BL project. We have brought on our friend @twig-tea.

Twig

Hello.

NiNi

Hi, Twig. Welcome to the show.

Twig

Thank you so much for having me.

NiNi

New friend of the pod. Super excited to have you here. Twig is what we delightfully referred to as a ‘fandom old.’ I'm very excited to be having this conversation with two fandom olds in here, Twig and Ben, because, dear listeners, I have not had the time to watch Ossan's Love, so this is gonna be interesting. Ben and Twig are gonna school me.

Twig

We'll do our best.

Ben

This is going to be an interesting episode because we're going to be talking about a project that was somewhat overlooked by fandom, myself included, until the last couple of months. And I'm a little bit salty about it, and so I wanted to bring on somebody who has watched all of this in real time, and I thought that their perspective would be helpful. 

Twig, you are new to our listeners. Why don't you tell them a little bit about yourself in fandom and your history with queer cinema and BL?

Twig

I actually started on the GL side, which is a little bit different than I think a lot of folks in the BL fandom. I started with getting into Sailor Moon and got involved with a group of women who started Yuricon. The first Yuricon was held in Newark, NJ, in 2003 and I was the secretary. 

From there, there just wasn't enough GL content, and so I got into BL, too. I was really into Japanese manga, was part of a few scanlation groups, got oversaturated, stepped away, came back in 2016 to be shocked at the fact that a whole lot of the stuff that I used to watch was now made into live action. 

The YouTube algorithm in late 2016—early 2017—fed me Lovesick and I sort of went, “Hello. What's this?” Then watched Make it Right and was hooked on Thai BL. Tried to backfill as much as I could, so I watched Gray Rainbow, and Diary of Tootsies, and all this stuff that nobody talks about, really, anymore. 

One of the things about fandom at that time was that the way you found stuff was digging and a prayer, and random people making random lists, and it was very hard to tell how good those lists were. And so I managed that by watching everything and making my own opinions. And that is why I watched Ossan’s Love when it aired, or as soon as I could get my hands on it.

NiNi

So we're talking like real, real old school. We're talking about “Oh God, maybe some fansubber might help us out here.”

Twig

Fuckin’, like, Internet relay chat.

NiNi

IRC was my job back in the day.

Twig

Yes!

NiNi

I was talking about other things—not BL, but I was there.

Ben

Twig has sketchy as shit DVDs that were handed to her by a fan that have not great rip but really solid subs.

Twig

Bought in a mall parking lot with Mandarin subtitles that we used to watch with my friends who spoke Mandarin so they could translate for us in real time. It was hard. We used to walk uphill both ways back in the day.

Ben

A lot of folks who have been in this for a long time—we joked that we watched everything because we had to. You have done a better job of keeping track of what you've watched.

Twig

I wish I'd done better. I only really started tracking things in 2020. I did try to backfill the years before that, but I only really captured all of the major series. There was so many shorts, and things like that, I just couldn't do. But my spreadsheet has about 600 things on it, 606 as of today.

Ben

Incredible.

NiNi

I have been watching media overall—like seriously watching media—for…30 years…and I have not watched 606 of anything.

Ben

Nah, I believe her. It adds up. I engage with close to 100 BLs every year for the last 2-3 years.

NiNi

Clearly I'm not in these streets with y'all.

[Twig laughs]

Ben

I'm so glad Twig has showed up because it has given me permission to not watch so much.

NiNi

I bow down to you guys, because there was a point in time where, trying to keep up with week-to-week, I was watching something like eight shows at a time and I literally felt like my head was on fire. So, I don't know how you guys do it.

Ben

Practice. [laughs]

NiNi

We talked about this on the show, how last year I watched 50 things, maybe, for the whole year, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I usually watch like 15.

Ben

50 is good. Like, that's a really healthy number.

Twig

That is. That's pretty solid.

NiNi

As in five-zero? 

Ben

Yeah, no, that's great!

NiNi

A year?! 

Ben

Yeah! And we made a whole fucking show out of it! It’s good!

NiNi

Deep breaths. Okay, let's continue. Let's go on. [laughs]

00:06:25 - Ossan’s Love History and Summary

NiNi

Let's get into Ossan's Love. Ben, do the honors, tell us what is Ossan's Love about?

Ben

Actually, I want to do this one a little bit differently. 

NiNi, you have not engaged with Ossan's Love. The most you have is the fandom vibe on it from the periphery. What is your impression of Ossan's Love prior to all of us posting a lot about the new show?

NiNi

When you say periphery, I think you're being incredibly generous. There was one where they’re flight attendants maybe, or something to do with an airline. I am aware of that. And then there was something with a boss. There was a thing about a shower. There's some dirty jokes that go over my head because they're referential to this show. But in terms of my awareness of Ossan’s Love, it's honestly not much. 

Did I get any of those things correct by the way?

Twig

You totally did.

Ben

You did. I almost shouted “Dispatch” when you mentioned the airport. [Twig and Ben laugh] 

All right. So, I will give what I knew of Ossan's Love prior to earnestly engaging with it: Ossan's Love is a workplace-set drama in which a guy who works in an office is being pursued by a colleague of the same age as him and his boss—who is like 20-plus-odd years older than him. At the time when I didn't watch it, the fandom vibe on it was that it was fairly offensive, particularly around the old guy character. And, when it was hard to find this show, I was like, “Whatever, I'm not going to work that hard for a show that people seem really put off by.” I have had to make sure that I check if I am riding an old fandom opinion from prior to 2019 when it comes to older work, because those opinions are usually not informed by the lens that I use. And so I decided to engage with Ossan's Love properly. 

Before we start describing what the show is specifically, Twig, what do you remember about your experience watching the show in real time and the popular opinions about it?

Twig

So, the first thing is real time had really different meanings back then because we didn't have international distribution. It was sort of when things were fan subbed and when you could find them and knew they existed. So, I actually didn't get to watch the short until years after the original. So my first outing with Ossan’s Love was season one. 

At the time, it felt like if you liked it, you should be quiet about it, because the opinion was so negative that you would be shouted down if you said anything positive about it. So I just sort of stayed in my corner of enjoyment and tried not to think too hard about it.

Ben

That is unfortunately how I remember it being. It was not popular to say positive things about Ossan’s Love at the time. Even the fans of Ossan's Love seemed super ambivalent about the second season, which was an alternative universe.

Twig

Yeah. When Season 2 aired it was an even wider swing. The people who really loved Season 1 seemed to hate Season 2. I actually like Season 2 better than Season 1, so I was even more like, [laughs] “Okay, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about, guys, so I'm just gonna stay over here and let you all have your opinions over there.”

Ben

So our quick timeline: we have Ossan’s Love the TV special in 2016. We have Ossan’s Love the TV show airing during spring of 2018. They released the movie Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead —that went into theaters on August 23rd of 2019—and then a few months later, in November, they released Ossan’s Love: In The Sky. It's my understanding that Ossan’s Love Returns was originally supposed to air in, like, 2020-2021. They've returned to that project this year in 2024.

NiNi

I know they're going to be doing a Thai version of this coming up and they also have the Hong Kong version?

Twig

That's right. Yep. There was a Hong Kong version in I think 2021 or 2022.

NiNi

I love when they take a property and they remake it across cultures over and over again. I'm always intrigued to see how they turn out.

Ben

Have you watched the Hong Kong version, Twig?

Twig

I peeked at it. It's really true to season one in a lot of ways. I haven't actually watched it all the way through because I was like, “If I want to rewatch season one, I'll just rewatch season one.”

Ben

I feel like I have to watch it at some point. 

All right, so let's get into Ossan’s Love properly now: Ossan’s Love is about a 33 year old man named Haruta who is a slob. He is a hot mess of a man. He cannot take care of himself. He lives with his mom, and she does all the housework. She decides to bail on him and go run off with the hot new man she's with. And so he asks his colleague, whose name is Maki, to move in with him to help him out because Maki is very good at house chores. 

He learns accidentally that his boss, whose name is Kurasawa Musashi, has had a crush on him for a long time and also simultaneously learns that Maki has been crushing on him for a long time. Hijinks ensue as the two of them begin aggressively pursuing him, and he is not prepared for this sudden surge in gay activities.

Twig

One thing I add to your description, Ben, is it's a comedy.

Ben

So this is where things get a little bit complicated. Comedy is hard to do correctly, because a big part of comedy is playing with people's preconceptions of how an interaction should go. A lot of folks struggle with Japanese comedy because they're just not aware of the expectations for how an interaction should go, and so the humor is not landing on them, and this can happen even in your own culture. Like, if you showed a teenager today Airplane, many of the jokes in that movie would make no sense to them because they're missing some of the cultural context. Some of that exists with peoples engagement with Ossan's Love, I think.

Twig

I think that's right.

00:13:42 - The Characters 

Ben

The big part about Ossan's Love that impresses me is how the show gets better each time they come back. There are things that are kind of yikes in the short that are tweaked out in the first show. There are things that they retooled Haruta and Kurosawa over in the airport season. And then, in the most recent season, Ossan's Love Returns, they've shifted where the focus of their storytelling is after everything that's going on. So we are seeing the same characters, but they're dealing with much different dynamics. 

So, Ossan's Love Returns was a completely acceptable point for a lot of people to jump on, and I almost just jumped on. But, I like to know how we got here. So I was like, “I must watch all of this first!” [laughs]

NiNi

I was about to say on what point were you ever gonna just jump on without going back into the before times? You, sir, are a historian and a completionist.

Ben

Of course. And so I went back and watched. 

Twig, since you didn't have a lot of people to talk about Ossan's Love with at the time, how about you talk about your impressions of Haruta, Maki, and Kurosawa when you first engaged with it?

Twig

The thing that stuck with me is that, even in 2018, it felt a little more queer than a lot of the other stuff I was watching alongside it at the time. Haruta and Maki, and all of the characters, play into that in different ways. Haruta is an extremely frustrating character. I just wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him through most of season one, and I think that's partially intentional. 

Haruta is set up as the literal straight man. He's there to be what your average straight guy reaction might be when confronted with gayness, and everyone around him literally slaps him and tells him he's being an idiot. Delightful, but it doesn't make the character himself very likable at first. The fact that he grows on you anyway, even while he's being so frustrating, speaks to the other strengths in his character: his kindness, and the way he values his coworkers. And I think the later seasons did a really good job of picking up the things that made Haruta such a great character, and enforcing that in the character writing itself to make him more likable overall. 

I loved Kurosawa from jump. I think he's [laughs] incredible. He lives life on 11, and I think watching an older man step through some of the more standard romance tropes very clumsily but earnestly is incredibly charming. 

Maki is the competent character. He's also a self-actualized gay man. He at no point questions his sexuality at all, has no crisis about it. He knows who he is and what he's attracted to. And that was also really refreshing for BL at the time.

NiNi

Describing the kind of character that Kurosawa is made me think of Ben describing characters like Shin from Minato's Laundromat. When you tend to see these younger characters who are full on gung-ho chasing after the ones that they like, people like that. But they don't like the boss because they don't think their character should be doing that.

Twig

When I was first telling Ben about my opinions about the show, I said one of the things I struggle with is whether Kurosawa is telling the joke or is the joke. I think the more I have watched and rewatched, especially in later seasons, they do a really good job of him being a funny character and we're not laughing at him. He's not the butt of the joke, he's just funny. The people who would be turned off by an old guy hitting on a younger guy no matter what were turned off by that character and the ones who were sympathetic to older men also having romance in their lives were turned off by the idea that it was a comedy.

Ben

The comedy in the way Kurosawa pursues Haruta is about the age gap, not the fact that he's an old man. It's that he's at a different stage of his life. He's not fumbling to figure out stuff, he knows what he wants and his time is limited, so he's pursuing it determinately and also because he's older, he's behaving in line with his generation.

Like, if you don't have friends who are more than 10 years older than you, sometimes you're going to get weirded out by their cultural stuff. Like right now, I'm reaching the age gap with some of the kids I tutor, and I had to deal with all the various iterations on rizz and I don’t like it. 

[Twig and NiNi laugh]

I had an 8 year old call himself The Rizzler the other day and I almost pushed him down.

Twig 

Oh no.

NiNi

Oh my God.

Ben

I understand the concern around Kurosawa. But that is not what I think the show is doing, and even if it accidentally does it, that is not the show’s intent. Haruta is dealing with the sudden shift in his relationships with men who are important to him. Maki was just like his friend and colleague, who he was low-key mooching off of to do housework for him, and he has to deal with the fact that the only reason Maki is willing to put up with him is because Maki likes him. With Kurosawa, a big part of their relationship is the fact that he respects and admires him so much. The relationship between them is very paternal in a lot of ways?

Twig

A mentorship.

Ben

Yeah, he sees Kurosawa as a respected mentor and Kurosawa respects Haruta as well as a valued member of his team. A big part of the show is them sorting out the way that affection complicates some of these relationships, and we as the audience have to struggle with why these men like this man. Haruta is fucking useless in the household. He may be good at his job, but he is horrible at house related stuff. And so the question is why would anyone want him? 

And this is not rhetorical for the show. They really want you to grapple with this. The fact that Haruta is kind of repulsive as a romantic interest is something the show wants you to think about. You have to work to understand why so many people are into Haruta, and I think this gets better overtime.

Twig

They do a really good job with all of the women characters in this show, which was super rare for the time and still worth saying. His best friend Chizu also is terrible at housework, but she's a woman, and so she's struggling with the expectation that she get married and she keeps talking about how she needs to find somebody who does for her what Haruta’s men are willing to do for him. I just love putting those two characters side by side. And the silent question that's asked of the audience. That's like, why is this okay for Haruta, but not for Chizu.

Ben

It's not really subtle. As the show goes on, Maki won't really commit to Haruta because Haruta is ostensibly straight. Maki is hesitant about full committing because it's hard to be gay, like you got a lot to face as a gay person and he doesn't know that Haruta is going to stand up to all that. He's kind of a waffly type of dude. He's kind of a people pleaser who won't really stand up to anyone. This is kind of good for him as a salesperson. It's obvious why all their clients like Haruta. But it makes him kind of unreliable as a partner because you're not certain he's going to hold ground with you when the world is telling you that you shouldn't be together. 

The first season ends on a really cool note, ‘cause Maki and Haruta break up and Haruta just falls apart. And Kurosawa moves in with him for a while to help take care of him. For Kurosawa, it's a romantic thing, but it very much feels like someone’s parent going to take care of their kid. Haruta recognized where he failed with Maki, and he starts trying to help out with house stuff a little bit. But it's not like he suddenly becomes like a great housekeeper. I really liked that choice, that he starts putting in an effort but he's still horrible at it. 

Kurosawa ends up proposing to Haruta. Haruta has a hard time saying no to people, so he accepts. Also, he used a flash mob. It's hard to say no when someone flash mobs you.

NiNi

Pause. Pause for cause.

Twig

Michael Jackson-themed flash mob.

NiNi

Okay, not pausing. Unpausing. Go ahead.

Ben

Kurosawa is always at 11. He is an incredible character and like he and Haruta are going to get married and at the altar, Kurosawa is like. You need to go to him. You don't actually want to be here. And so Haruta runs to Maki and proposes to him at the end of the first season. 

And then there's just an incredible supporting cast in the show. I don't think we have time to talk about all of them properly, but. Haruta’s friend Chizu’s older brother Teppei runs a little bar diner that they often hang out at. He's so funny, always giving them weird gross food combinations to try out. They’re’s Maro, who's a member of their team who did not know Haruta’s given name for the years they worked together, there's Maika, who's kind of a nosy busybody at their work. She's a great source of comedy, ends up with Teppei. There's Takegawa, who's the second at their office in the first season, who is revealed to be Maki’s ex later. And he is intense as hell and becomes a complicating factor in the budding relationship between Haruta and Maki because he challenges Haruta. He's like, why is he putting this much effort into you? You suck! I really love the Takegawa character because he is a hot mess.

Twig

He just is so pained at Maki falling for a straight man. Something that is deeply relatable for anybody in queer spaces. [NiNi laughs] Like we have all been that person. Like, what are you doing to yourself?

Ben

I want to nod to Choko real quick. In the first season, Kurosawa has a wife of 30 years. Her name is Choko. Once his feelings for Haruta become known to Haruta, he decides he's going to pursue them and he tells this to his wife and they get divorced. She is understandably upset about this whole situation. But what's so great about it is, the show allows her to have a journey of figuring out what her life is going to be now that this information is out there. Like, she was hurt and upset at first, but then decides to support Kurosawa because this is her partner of 30 years and she understands him, so she ends up eventually supporting what he's trying to do with Haruta. And she ends up developing her own relationship with Maro. 

It's really cool in this show where there's this whole complicated thing about whether or not these three gay men are going to sort themselves out into various relationship configurations, they're also doing a pretty steep successful age gap romance between like a 30-something year old man and a woman approaching 60.

Twig

I love Choko's arc so much. It's the one thing that stayed with me the most. She is also allowed to be funny. She's silly and immature in the same ways that the male characters are. She's not perfect either. And I think that is super important that she's a complicated character. 

I think it's really important that this show talks about the ways in which homophobia and being in the closet hurts everyone, not just gay people. I think this show does a good job of at least alluding to the fact that the hurt that's caused by people having to live lies makes waves in communities.

NiNi

I like when they put that on older characters, as well. There's so much to unpack when you're talking about a life lived in the closet, emerging from a life lived in the closet later on in life. What you're gonna do with that life and how you're gonna treat it. From what you guys are saying about Kurosawa, it’s like he just decided to take life by the balls once he came out of the closet, and that's always something that I enjoy seeing.

Ben 

I guess, well, on some of the negatives. The humor is choppy in the first season. You do have to recalibrate as you're watching. It is very funny, but in ways that are unexpected. You will end up feeling a sense of revulsion in the show, particularly to season one Haruta. When I started going back to it, I had a difficult time with the first episode because I'm asking myself why would anyone want to fuck this man? [NiNi and Twig laugh] That is a real and valid reaction that you have to work with as you're watching the show. And so parts of it are a little bit difficult to watch in that regard. 

And Kurosawa is a huge character. You have to take time to get to know him and understand him and understand where his behaviors are coming from. And if you're not willing to do that work, the show is super off putting. 

Twig 

It is loud. You do have to allow your comedy ear to calibrate to its shouting. 

Ben 

However, I will say that if you want to see romance in BL about older characters, Ossan’s Love is right there. The entire drama is about 30-somethings and much older dealing with life and love. There is no wistful stuff about “things were easier when we were kids” in this show at all. It is very much grounded in the perspective and dramas that people in their 30s and 40s and 50s are dealing with in life and romance. 

Twig 

I feel like the one other thing that I always feel the need to call out about the first season is Haruta, because of what his character is struggling with, is physically uncomfortable with displays of affection, and particularly with kissing, in the first season. And that can be off putting too, but he makes it clear verbally that he's not actually against physical affection, he's just familiar with it? It is one of the things that the show does better later on.

00:28:23 - Love or Dead and In The Sky

Ben 

Let's talk about the movie! Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead. 

Twig 

[laughs] Every time I think about that title, it makes me laugh, ‘cause it's just so extra. 

NiNi 

I'm sorry, Love or Dead? 

Ben

Mhmm.

Twig 

Oh yeah. 

Ben 

The premise of this movie is at the end of season one, Haruta got an opportunity to go work in Shanghai for about six months, and the guys are going to be facing a separation for a bit. There's drama when Maki goes to pick up Haruta ‘cause he's found in a compromising position, and a big part of this is Maki still dealing with his anxiety around whether or not Haruta can be a partner to him. Maki gets selected to be part of this high-powered real estate team, and there's a bunch of drama that unfolds involving a partnership with a drug peddling organization and then we end on like an action note where they have to rescue Haruta from a burning building. 

Twig 

There are explosions. 

Ben 

Lots of explosions. 

NiNi 

This sounds… delightful. This sounds like exactly my kind of crack. 

Ben 

You should watch it sincerely. 

Twig 

It is delightful. 

Ben 

If you're not certain about Ossan’s Love, legit, watching Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead is not a terrible place to start. It's a two-hour outing that covers the basic ground of the franchise, has some really strong moments, and is super cracked out. 

What's so fun in it is, we talk about the retooling of the characters. In season one, Maki and Kurosawa beef a lot over Haruta and legit get into physical brawls over it. This is a feature of the entire franchise. These men scrap on the regular. There's this great moment when they're trying to rescue Haruta from this building where Kurosawa's role as their mentor comes through and he reads Maki about how he's always holding back in the relationship. That's what I think works for me the most in this franchise, the collective love that everyone has for each other. It's true that Kurosawa is not going to succeed as a romantic rival to Maki in this story, but that doesn't mean that he's not important to everyone and everything going on. And I really, truly love that. 

Twig 

His mentorship relationship with Maki really starts to flourish in the movie, the moment where Maki’s hanging off of a ledge and Kurosawa is helping him physically back onto the ledge so he doesn’t fall into the flames, but also verbally telling him what he needs to do to save his relationship. This movie is not subtle with its metaphors. But it's such a good moment where we realize that Kurosawa plays that role for Maki, too, of a mentor, and that he's willing to do it for the relationship, even at the same time as being a love rival. And it sets up the new season really well. 

Ben 

The movie matters to the timeline of the series. The movie is not just some sort of one off moment that occurs. The events of the movie are built into the characters, and it was the beginning of them retooling how these characters function. 

NiNi 

This sounds like a very experimental type of series, just the way that they do different things each time. While they are refining their central characters and the central storylines, they're also experimenting with style and tone, and a number of other things it feels like? 

Twig 

I think that's really true. One of the things about the movie that's really fun is it's the first instance of sports in the series. We get Justice playing basketball with Haruta and working his feelings out through basketball. 

Ben 

JUSTICE!!! [Twig and Ben laugh]

Twig 

Love and peace! And that becomes a huge part of the AU and also part of Ossan’s Love Returns that I think really adds to the experience. They try things out and then if it works, they pick it up and add and yes, and it, and then they pull out the things that didn't really work. I find that really interesting to watch happen. 

NiNi 

The concept of something being iterative like that in real time, it's not for everybody. 

Ben 

This series went on to do something super experimental where a couple of months after they released a continuation movie promising that these characters would get back together, they released an alternative universe season where only Haruta and Kurosawa were present from the original cast, and now we're at an airport dealing with a completely different set of characters and a slightly different dynamic. 

It also gave Twig and I our favorite bit. 

Twig

[laughs] Dispatch! 👍

Ben

Dispatch! 👍 Oh my God. It is so funny, every single time. 

NiNi 

Every time. 

Ben 

Every episode has at least two dispatch moments. [Twig laughs] It's so fucking funny. 

Twig 

Sometimes it's to end a conversation. Sometimes it's to greet somebody, sometimes it's to shut down a conversation, distract from someone saying something you don’t want them to say. 

Ben 

So in this particular season, Kurosawa is still a leader. He is the captain of a flight crew. Haruta is a new flight attendant who is joining this team. In this case, Kurosawa is not Haruta’s long-term mentor who has been harboring a crush on him. He develops his crush in real time. Haruta moves into company housing and there's a slightly older guy there who's got a crush on Haruta, but he won't say anything about it. And then there's the meanest twink who's ever existed in BL. 

NiNi 

I mean y'all just seem to be giving me multiple reasons to watch this show at this point, so. 

Ben 

So in the second season, there's far more complicated people in the Haruta stuff. There's Kaname who is the older mechanic who lives in the dorms, and he's got this huge crush on Haruta, but he'll never say anything about it. Naruse is causing fucking problems all the time, because every time he has relationship drama and people show up at their airport to fuck with him about it, he just starts kissing Haruta to make people go away. And then people throw drinks in Haruta’s face over it. Because Tanaka Kei is a master of physical comedy. 

Twig 

One of the staples of the series is what I call the Haruta reaction supercut, where they just have multiple cuts of Haruta’s face as it morphs into more and more absurd huh, no, whaaa faces. He does bend his body in ways that's like a cartoon falling over, it's pretty incredible. 

NiNi 

Ben knows that I love physical comedy. 

Twig 

Yoshida Kotaro has incredible physical comedy, too. 

Ben 

Like if you ever want to see an old man try and kill an aging twink [Twig laughs], this is the show for you. 

I get why people who liked the first show bounced off of this, because the rest of the cast is gone. The supporting cast is a really strong part of the Ossan’s Love experience, but I really like the AU season because I think it allowed them to retool Haruta and Kurosawa. And retool the relationship between them to make it more about their mentorship. They're building that relationship in the AU season ‘cause they don't know each other. 

Twig 

The thing that I really like about the AU setup is because Haruta is coming into a new environment, we get to see him build his network of people around him over the course of the season. Showing us what's likable about Haruta because he has to charm all these people around him in order to get friends and build a community, is a really important piece of the puzzle that allowed me to get to like that character a lot more, because he was charming me at the same time. 

Ben 

We get a lot of great moments in the season. Kurosawa has been a pilot for 30 years and he decides to retire and everyone is sad about it. I'm sad about it, Twig is crying about it. 

Twig 

Mmhm. 

Ben 

He ends up inviting the three guys who we've mentioned out to hang out in the park with him. He has this sumo tournament with them where he's basically giving them the last bit of advice he's going to give them and it is, one of the most intensely emotional man moments I have had in this genre. I was losing it and I was crying. I was hollering and screaming, messaging Twig like, “Wake up, I need to talk about this right now, I don't care what you're doing. Get up.” 

Truly, it is one of the best moments in TV about the relationships between men that I have ever experienced, and it is this hyper ridiculous sumo wrestling moment in a gay romance drama in the AU season that is technically not canon, and it was the moment from the series that lingers with me the most. 

Twig 

Even in the moment they're looking at each other like, is this happening? How is this happening? This isn't real. Nobody does this. Nobody calls each other to the side of the river with a note [laughs] to hold a wrestling competition in which we talk about our feelings. 

Ben 

But it works really well. I ended up really loving the way it allowed us to think about these two men and the relationship between them. We get to appreciate how important Kurosawa is to Haruta. 

Twig 

That sumo wrestling moment allows us to see Kurosawa's relationships with all of his subordinates. The way he's so firm and so gentle with Naruse, with like “soft landing,” meanwhile, throws Haruta out of the ring. 

Ben 

The way he talks to all of these men as specific to them, like his role as leader is strongest in the AU season. My primary concern for the Thai adaptation is who is playing Kurosawa, because this character is as important as the romantic leads. 

Twig 

I think it's more important. 

Ben 

I am with Twig. Who is going to match Yoshida Kotaro in Thailand? I need to know. 

Twig 

I'm eagerly awaiting that announcement. 

NiNi 

The answer is going to be Nu Surasak or Kob Songsit.

Ben 

I really hope it's good. 

00:39:00 - Ossan’s Love Returns

Ben

Ossan's Love Returns reunites the original cast after five years. Maki is returning from an extended stint in Singapore, and now he and Haruta are gonna start their cohabitating married life together. Maki is now part of the super team at headquarters, following up on the movie. Haruta is still on the streets with regular folk, ‘cause that's where he wants to be. Kurosawa has retired, I liked that follow up from the AU season. And now he's working as a housekeeper. Maki is working too much and Haruta is still bad at house, and so they hire a housekeeper, who ends up being Kurosawa [Twig laughs] who cannot hold back his feelings for Haruta and it becomes one of the ongoing dramas of the season. 

One of the things I enjoyed in this season is… they explore how to integrate Kurosawa into their lives long term. Haruta is serious about Maki and committed to their romance. Kurosawa is also extremely important to him and he treats him like a father figure. They explicitly have Choko talk to Kurosawa about how a lot of the ways he feels [laugh] about Maki are a lot of the ways a mother-in-law might feel about their daughter-in-law with the way they beef with each other. And when we say they beef with each other, I mean, these two men are legit fighting in their kitchen, like Kurosawa hits Maki in the head repeatedly with a frying pan. Maki legit throws Kurosawa through a door at one point and knocks it off the hinges. These two men, when they scrap with each other, are fighting for real and I love it every time.

NiNi

It's just like you all conspired to come into this recording booth today and just be like, okay, so you say this and I'll say that and between us we're gonna get her to watch this, because she likes this kind of stuff.

Ben

I didn't really have to work that hard. We're just legit talking about what the show was doing. We get a really great season of Maki and Haruta settling into what their life is going to look like. There's some introduced new characters in the season that we all had very complicated feelings about who I think end up fitting fine by the end. Most of the original cast comes back and there's like a really great bit of exploring what all these characters settling into their relationships that they got into in the first season in this one. 

So Haruta and Maki are now living together and figuring out what that is going to look like, who are they gonna be as a couple now that they're not doing long distance ‘cause they've basically been long distance between every outing. Which I think was a clever choice because it means that the characters’ relationship dynamic doesn't really move that much between outings. 

Choko is now living with Maro and Maro’s mom, and Choko is struggling because she's older than Maro's mom. She can't just treat this woman like her mother-in-law. And Maro doesn't know how to help because he's caught between his wife, who's way older than him, and his mom, who's confused and a little bit uncertain about this whole dynamic.

Twig

I also love that that's not the only thing we see Choko having worked through in the time we've been apart from her. She opened an archery range after her divorce, and sort of reinvented herself with this new life that she's actually thriving in.

Ben

They get new neighbors who are a bunch of weirdos.

Twig

[laughs] They're so weird. They're so weird.

Ben

These two are revealed to be members of, like, a public security division that maybe doesn't actually exist. Izumi ends up becoming obsessed with Haruta because he's a doppelganger for his dead lover who was killed in the line of duty, who is very, very different from Haruta. It was fun to see Tanaka Kei play a very different type of character in those flashbacks. I don't know that it entirely landed for me over the course of the season, but by the finale, which was fantastic, I was okay with them.

Twig

A large part of the way they were written is that they were a mystery for a large part of it, too. It's hard to bond with a character that you know nothing about and is intentionally opaque.

Ben

Chizu is trying to make it as a single mom and this reinforces one of the big themes of the season, that family is all the people who are going to show up for you all the time. She relies on Teppei and Maika to help, and she feels guilty about this and they tell her straight up, like, don't feel guilty. We are a family. You should rely on us. 

She had already made Haruta and Maki designated adults who can pick up her kid from the daycare. An important gay right of passage is your friend calling you and telling you I need you to go pick up my kid, and then you show up at said kindergarten to pick up a kid and they look at your ID and they go “oh you're allowed” and the kid runs to you and everybody goes, well, that makes sense. An important gay moment that everyone must experience.

Twig

One of the things that I love about this so much is that it picks up from a throw away line that Chizu says in the movie. She sort of brags that she's going to balance having a kid and her career. One of the things about the series is that it really feels like the people who are writing it love the whole series and are constantly thinking about how to call back in loving ways and how to pick up threads in loving ways. Something that she just sort of confidently stated she was going to do no problem in the movie becomes a whole plot in the following season.

Ben

There's a final arc in the season where Kurosawa has a health scare where we think he's going to die.

Twig

When we were talking about it, Ben, you said that it was an important moment for Maki and Haruta to confront the idea that Kurosawa won't always be around. And I was like, oh, that's why I don't like this part because I don't want to ever think about that. [Twig and Ben laugh]

Ben

The entire finale is this really great examination about the way this whole group of people are a family to each other.

Twig

It's not even just that it's happening, but they're explicit about it. They're having conversations about what is family? What are we to each other? How do we define our relationship? Where do those lines get drawn? And the answer is just sort of, yes.

Ben

There's an explicit line, like, what is Kurosawa to them? And then Maika comes over and hammers it home for the audience and is like, “There's no need to describe it. What matters is you all are going to be part of each other's lives forever.”

00:45:33 - Final Thoughts and Ratings

Ben

I don't think we talked about it as much. So, the first season is pretty light on kissing and intimacy between the male characters. Ossan's Love Returns is not! There's so much married intimacy between Haruta and Maki.

Twig

The casual intimacy in Ossan's Love Returns is constant, and it just feels very lived in? They're just constantly touching each other and having small kisses and teasing each other.

Ben

We got more of that today in the unexpected special spin-offs we're getting. I was like “ohh, I thought we were done. Oh, it's another cute little 20-minute office episode ending on the two of them making out next to the copier.” Love it.

NiNi

This is called Forbidden Gout Temps Nouveau. 

Twig

Mhmm.

NiNi

I have so many questions, but I feel like I should not ask those questions right now.

Ben

My general attitude is you don't need to watch all of Ossan's Love to enjoy parts of Ossan's Love. I think if you are interested in gay domesticity and complex family units, you can just watch Ossan's Love Returns right away.

NiNi

I'm watching it all. Eventually. I don't know when. There's a lot going on in the IRL space right now, but I'm gonna be watching the whole thing.

Twig

I feel like I should say something about the original short. It has a lot of the things that people found the hardest to swallow about season one. A lot of the stuff that they did originally they fixed or did better as they moved through. I would say the short is the thing to skip, of all of it, unless you're really curious about the journey of this franchise.

NiNi

I'm really fascinated by the idea of this as a reserve process of working through and refining the show in kind of a real time. I would like to see the whole thing just for that purpose. I'm a writer, so the way that this feels like multiple drafts, and you getting to actually see the multiple drafts to see why they might have decided to make a particular change in the next draft, or why they would have gone for an overhaul, or what would they have tweaked around the edges. I like the idea of looking at that.

Twig

It is not just the writing that they iterate. We haven't talked a lot about the visual effects that this show uses, but it has its own style. One of my favorites: it uses the bokeh effect, where the lighting in the background is blurred and sometimes takes shapes. It starts from the very beginning. You'll see the lights behind Kurosawa make little hearts while he's confessing to Haruta and Haruta’s has little like stop signs. [Ben laughs] And then they get bigger and bigger with that where Kurosawa’s hearts have little like heartbreak. They have– there’s little, like, zigzags in the hearts behind him when he gets rejected. Sometimes he'll be crying tear lights. That’s just one of the things that they play with in the different versions.

Ben

Naruse having that whole tantrum trying to get someone's attention for help? Then having that super cut of them screaming and then smash cutting to them just sitting at the table. There's like the courtroom audio stinger that dominates the first season that I fucking love [mimics the sound] thing that happens over the course of the whole season. It's so, so dramatic, and I'm like, “Is Judge Mathis gonna walk out? What is happening?”

Twig

Oh, and they do this thing where they hard cut to a visual metaphor like water leaking out of a water bottle or a pot boiling to represent the character’s emotions. There's so many visual moments. It's not just written well and acted well. It's also represented visually really well, and seeing how they experiment with that and how that changes. Like, the weird bobble heads we got in the AU season. I'm still not over those. I'm glad those didn't return.

Ben

It is not a perfect show. This is not a “Everybody was wrong. They should have watched all of this. Grab your pitchfork!” situation. This is not an easy show to love. If you can find your way to loving the show, I think it has been one of the most rewarding watches I've had in the genre since What Did You Eat Yesterday? 

Japanese BL is different from Thai BL. More experimental and weirder things are gonna happen over time if the series has a lot of leg in it, and Ossan's Love is one of those that has so much leg in it. Like the second season just ended, and I'd be okay if we don't see them again, but, I really hope we do.

Twig

Me too.

NiNi

All right, so let's get into ratings. I mean, is this the kind of thing that you rate? Instead of rating, let's rank. If you had to rank the different parts of the Ossan's Love franchise, how would you rank them? In terms of, for you, most enjoyable to probably the least enjoyable?

Ben

Well, the least enjoyable is the original special. It's the most rough and the hardest to swallow. I think the best season is the current one?

Twig

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's basically chronological order, I think. I struggle between the film and the AU ‘cause I like them for different reasons, and I struggled with them for different reasons. But I think Naruse tips it over there so that it stays ahead.

Ben

[Ben and Twig laugh] I love that mean twink!

Twig

He's just so great.

Ben

I don't know that I'd want to…rank them that way. I think each outing adds something to it. It's really a question of, do you like seeing people try to get together for the first time, or do you really like seeing people be together? For me, I'm very partial to Ossan's Love Returns because it's about gay life drama, which is what I’ve wanted for a while. And so I'm really fucking enjoying that.

Twig

Yeah, I love it when people have to figure out, “Now that we're in this relationship, how do we make this work?”

Ben

But I also love the AU season. I think the retooling of Haruta and Kurosawa is actually really helpful. I think taking a break from Maki is actually helpful for appreciating Haruta when you come back to them. I think you end up liking Haruta more by the time you get to Ossan's Love Returns and seeing the potential in him. The love people are trying to pour on to him in the current season is more accessible to me as a viewer because I got to spend time with Haruta growing to love him in the AU season.

Twig

I also just have affection for an entire season that seems to have basically been built off of like a throwaway reference to episode one, when Haruta says he's most attracted to stewardesses. And then, and also, like, maybe a pun because Kurosawa’s character is called bucho which means, like, manager essentially through all of the regular Ossan's Love stories. But in the AU he's kucho because he's a captain. And I think that's very funny.

Ben

In terms of my ratings, I'm looking at on MDL, I gave Ossan's Love and Ossan's Love Returns a 9. But I gave the AU season a 9.5. [Ben and Twig laugh] So, there's your answer.

Twig

There you go.

Ben

Twig, what did you rate the second season? I know ratings aren't always your thing, but did you give the second season a rating?

Twig

I didn't. If I was going to give it a rating. Ossan's Love Returns? Yeah, I’d give it a 9.

Ben

It's a 9 for me in that I think if you're into BL, you should watch the show, but I don't know that it is the most accessible show, so I don't want to give it a 10.

Twig

I think the thing about this show, too, is it's about multiple relationships. It's not just about Maki and Haruta, and I wouldn't even say their relationship dominates the story. So, to rank it against other BL as a romance narrative is quite difficult. It's about family and what that means in a queer context. Part of that is romance, but it's not even the biggest part? The family feels is what gets me about this series.

Ben

That's going to do it for Ossan's Love. We have succeeded at our mission. NiNi has agreed to watch the show. Twig and I got to unpack the entirety of this whole franchise. We have the benefit of knowing it gets better over time now, and so I don't begrudge people bouncing when they did in 2018. I think that in 2024, it is beneficial for people who care about the history of the genre to go back and properly engage with Ossan's Love. I genuinely think it is worth reconsidering your initial opinion. They… grow. Their characters are not static. What has occurred is taken seriously and what worked and didn't work is considered as they move forward.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on the Ossan's Love episode. Twig, it was so great having you on, and I hope you come back.

Twig

Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.

NiNi

With that, we out. Say bye to the people, Twig.

Twig

Dispatch!👍

Ben

Dispatch! 👍

NiNi

At some point I'm going to find out what that means, and then I will be unstoppable. Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

#ossan's love returns #ossan's love #ben and nini's conversations #podcast #lgbtq #the conversation #on art #thai bl #bl series #japanese bl #spring series #spring 2024

[the-conversation-pod]

The Pillars: The Return of OffGun and TayNew

And we're back!

NiNi and Ben bring Shan back to the recording booth to discuss how BL is not just a young man's game. We break down why we enjoyed Cooking Crush and Cherry Magic Thailand so much, and what makes OffGun and TayNew so special.

Come and join us for a healthy mixture of simping, genre appreciation, examinations of conflict writing, and love for queerness in BL.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Intro 00:03:58 - Cooking Crush: A Surprisingly-Good Romcom 00:08:02 - CC: Comedy Ain't Easy 00:16:59 - CC: Dynamite’s Queer Writing and Ten as a Rare Romantic Lead 00:32:08 - CC: Final Comments and Ratings 00:41:14 - Cherry Magic: Beating Expectations and Simping for Tay Tawan 00:54:13 - CM: Relationship Development and the Powers 01:02:15 - CM: Other Characters 01:13:51 - CM: Ratings 01:19:34 - The Pillars: Overall Thoughts

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Intro

Ben

And we're back. Welcome to the second spring outing with The Conversation. Shan is here with us today. Say hi, Shan.

Shan

Hiii.

Ben

And we're going to review the GMMTV pillars.

NiNi

So, Ben, what are the pillars? Let's do a little GMMTV history.

Ben

So when we refer to the pillars, we're talking about the original BL ships at GMMTV. The two we're going to talk about today are Off Jumpol and Gun Atthaphan, and we're gonna be talking about Tay Tawan and New Thitipoom, who've been together four times now — soon to be five.

Shan

I think what's important in the BL context about these two pairs, OffGun and TayNew, is that they have been at this for years at this point, like nine years, I think this year?

Ben

Nine years? Yep.

Shan

They have been at GMMTV, leading BLs, for almost a decade. And they have aged with the genre. They are now in their 30s. It's great, in my opinion, to see them continue to make shows and come back. 

There was this idea that Thai BL was only for very young actors, that actors, once they exited their 20s, would also exit the genre, to move on to, quote-unquote, “mainstream” work that was heterosexual. And I think that these pairs sticking around and coming back to make new shows in their 30s is really important because it just shuts that whole line of thinking down: that BL is only about and for young people, that it is a phase of a career that actors need to quote, “move on from.” And also it gives us the opportunity to actually see adult stories in GMMTV BL, which is not something that we've gotten much of yet. To see stories about adult characters actually played by adults who are the right age for those characters is really refreshing. 

So it's been really interesting to see these pairs come back into the public consciousness and to see that the fans are actually happy for them to stick around. I think that's been pretty cool.

Ben

I think what I enjoy the most about these two pairs coming back together is, both of the shows they're attempting have a more grown-up feel than their previous work. And in both cases, I think the fact that these actors are experienced and know each other really well genuinely benefits the work that they're doing.

00:03:58 - Cooking Crush: A Surprisingly-Good Romcom

NiNi

So let's dive into the first of the pillars. We're going to talk OffGun, and we're going to talk Cooking Crush. So, Ben, what is Cooking Crush about?

Ben

Cooking Crush is about how the most effective way to introduce a new actor at GMMTV is to slide them in around a bunch of other veterans.

Shan

[laughs] That's what it's about for you, for sure.

[all laugh]

Ben

Cooking Crush is a college-set BL about a team of culinary students who are trying to win a cooking competition, and the complications in their romantic lives around them. This show is actually really simple. Like, our protagonist, played by Gun, is named Prem. He lives with his grandmother and his sister. His grandmother runs a formerly very popular restaurant, and he has a goal of helping his grandmother's restaurant become more successful, and he wants to open a chef's table type of restaurant in the future. 

He and his two friends, Samsee and Dynamite, are kind of the oddballs in their culinary school? They're considered the lowest ranked students. They get kind of picked on a bit. Prem is considered kind of clumsy; Dynamite is just really young, because he's kind of a prodigy; and Samsee is just picked on because he's old, because he's pursued three different degrees without completing them. 

They're having some difficulties with school and Prem ends up having an interaction with Ten, played by Off, who is a med student who was a little bit overworked at the time and has accidentally starved himself to be pissy with his dad. The two of them have a very cute moment and a little relationship starts to build between them, originally off of Ten wanting Prem to teach him how to cook more, and Prem basically scamming that man because his little sister lost her tuition money.

NiNi

I think that's a good explanation of this setup. Shan, I want to come to you first. What's your headline on Cooking Crush?

Shan

Ohh, Cooking Crush is a warm hug of a show. And I love it. And it's not perfect. But it left me with such a good feeling and I intend to rewatch it, many times.

NiNi

OK. Well, Ben, I think we got your headline: Cooking Crush is about Aungpao.

Ben

That's about him.

[all laugh]

NiNi

Cooking Crush for me… what is my headline on Cooking Crush? That everybody in this is really good at comedy! Except maybe Gun, who's a little less good than everybody else, but everybody that they put in this is a very funny person, including Gun’s real-life sister, who I laughed my ass off at several times.

Shan

It's surprisingly good comedy. This one has been kind of a weird one in terms of the way it's been received by fandom. It didn't really fit the mood of the moment, I think. I think right now Thai BL fandom is very much paying attention to like, these more high-concept shows that are doing really fancy shit. Crazy visuals, supernatural, and mystical stuff. Cooking Crush is just a sweet romcom that wants to be really good at being a sweet romcom [laughs] and that's kind of it. It has kind of modest goals, but I think that people underestimate how hard it actually is to make a romcom that is actually sweet, and actually funny, and actually makes you want to support the couples in it—and this show succeeds at those things.

00:08:02 - CC: Comedy Ain't Easy

Ben

I think that's probably the biggest thing I would want to highlight about this show. Comedy is not easy. [laughs] At all. Comedy and comedic timing is really difficult to do, and Gun’s admitted that it's not his strongest skill as an actor—that he needs a lot of help from the crew and his cast mates to do comedy well.

Shan

Whereas for Off this is where he thrives, and he hasn't gotten to do it before in a BL.

NiNi

I think that they had the right idea in making Gun’s character Prem sort of the straight man of the ensemble, so to speak.

Ben

A great joke unto itself.

NiNi

[laughs] And surrounding it with a bunch of really good comedic actors who could sort of take up the zip and the zing of it all. Like I think that was the right idea. And I did enjoy, like, all that sort of zany, madcap stuff that was supposed to be happening around him from a writing standpoint, and the shape of what I saw it was supposed to be. I absolutely enjoyed that. My little niggle about it was that the direction doesn't zing enough for me, in terms of how I feel like this was meant to go. 

It's really surprising for me because this was directed by Golf Sakon, who did my nemesis Fish Upon The Sky, but [laughs] Fish Upon The Sky, for all that we could say about it—and trust me, I have said plenty—it was visually interesting, it was zippy, it was well directed from that standpoint. And I feel like Golf’s direction in this was a little bit flat. It didn't have the zing. That sort of is my main complaint about the show, but the show itself is really, really good. I just wanted it to zip a little bit more.

Shan

Yeah, I agree with that critique, NiNi. I think the directing and the editing—[laughs] cannot forget the editing—is definitely the biggest ding on this show. There was some weird stuff going on in the production. The most notable of course being right in the middle of the show when we suddenly had an episode that was mostly reshoots, which was extremely obvious because Off got a haircut after they finished wrapping this show, a very obvious haircut, and then they had to come back and do reshoots. There was some really hinky editing throughout the show, like some dropped beats, some confusing scenes, some flashback sequences that didn't make sense as flashbacks… They were trying to do some stuff in the editing booth that I just think didn't work, and sometimes really undermined the good work that the writing and the acting was doing. 

In terms of overall production, this show was not quite at the level it should have been. In the end, that didn't get in the way of what was a really strong story and really good performances from the cast, and so it still came together well enough, but it's a definite ding.

Ben

I want to talk about the writing portion. Shan, you're usually really good at detailing conflict writing. How about you go through the various major beats of this show and how this show executed them?

Shan

Obviously, we had the main romance, which was between Ten and Prem, and that was a pretty straightforward, simple romance, that actually worked amazingly, because what this show did extremely consistently was it set up all of these really annoying like classic drama tropes for the romance, and then every single time it just knocked them down by having the characters communicate with each other. An obstacle came up for the couple that would normally cause a one- or two-episode conflict. Instead, Ten would insist on talking to Prem about it, coming to some kind of alignment and understanding each other, and they would sail through it. That was kind of the consistent throughline with their relationship, and it was really strong and really lovely to see. 

We also had a side couple romance that was between Fire and Dynamite. That one was a little bit more contentious. It was tied to a couple different things that were going on with Fire, with internalized homophobia, with some struggles that he was having in being his authentic self in his family with his mother. Dynamite was someone who kind of pushed him, and kind of made him aware of the things within himself that he was stifling. And so they had a very adversarial dynamic when the show started: Fire was very committed to kind of trying to be the son that his mom wanted him to be, including dating a woman, and so really fighting against what he was feeling for Dynamite. Dynamite is a great character, who I'm gonna let you talk about more, Ben, but I think their dynamic really pushed both of them along a good character growth arc through their relationship. 

Alongside that, we had a couple big threads about the friendship between particularly Prem and Samsee and Dynamite. They were working together on this cooking school dream, they were trying to get through their classes, they entered this cooking competition and there was a lot of story about them as like a group of people who are kind of considered losers within their cohort, trying to get to a place where they were a good and efficient cooking team who could actually play at the level of some of these other folks that they were competing against. 

We also had another big thread for Ten’s family situation. His mother had passed away some time ago. He had a lot of anger and resentment with his father about the circumstances around that, and a lot of trauma around his mother's death, and he was kind of working through that as he was falling in love with Prem. 

So we had all of these different things flowing into the same story, and one of the things that was so impressive about this show is that they actually did all flow together. The writing was very consistent. The characters were figured out from the beginning of the story. It's one of those things where, once you have all the context of who these people are, you can look back at all their previous behavior and it totally makes sense, and everything tracks. And all of these plot threads came together in the final three episodes through an actually pretty well executed conflict arc, which is something that doesn't happen very often in Thai BL—usually that's where Thai BLs completely fall apart. But here all of the conflicts were well laid throughout the show and built to kind of come to a head at the same point, and then we had them converge in the final arc. 

Not everything about the way they played out was extremely perfect or satisfying, but most of it was, and the characterization stayed true the whole way through. So it was some pretty strong writing for a show like this.

NiNi

I have to concur that the writing was really strong on this show. It's logically laid out. It makes sense, the characters behave like recognizable human beings, which I can't always say [laughs] is the reality of a lot of these dramas that we're watching. For example, Dynamite, who is a complicated character—with the mix of the writing and the acting, I could see underneath where his pushing of Fire was coming from, and why it was something that he felt like he needed to do? 

We find out through a flashback later, which—was a weird way to get this information—Fire was the one who made Dynamite who he is. He made Dynamite feel like he had to stand up for himself and be out there, and all he's doing is trying to do the same for Fire. It just plays out in this way that I think made some people uncomfortable, but I could see it once the context information was there. This is where [their] editing got hinky, because clearly the character was written this way. The hinky editing needed so that it took almost 2/3 of the show for the motivation to meet up with the character. That's not a writing problem, that's an editing problem. 

I found the writing on the show was incredibly strong, everything logically follows on from everything else. There was a lot of surprisingly deep writing around Ten’s whole issue with his dad about his mom, and his feelings about his mom. Around Samsee's feelings of potentially getting left behind because he's older, and they're getting into these relationships and he's starting to feel like, ‘what is there for me? It took me so long to find my people, and I feel like they're leaving me.’ And that was a particularly strong thread that I really enjoyed. I enjoyed Metha, who is Fire and Ten’s friend—hilarious, played by Tum, super good actor. I love him, very, very funny. I really enjoyed the writing on this thing, and I can't always say that for, particularly Thai BL… it was delightful.

00:16:59 - CC: Dynamite’s Queer Writing and Ten as a Rare Romantic Lead

Shan

All the characters in this show are great, but there's a couple that really, really stood out, and I think we should talk about them. And Ben, you should definitely lead us with some Dynamite talk. Tell us why that character matters so much to you.

Ben

Dynamite has the great honor of getting The Conversation’s first blorbo of the season award.

Shan

[laughs] So early in the season, too.

Ben

I know. He is the winter ‘24 blorbo for me! I love this boy. Here's the thing. With Dynamite: he is canonically young, he's like 17-18 in like his third year in school. And his only friends are played by Gun Atthaphan and Dome Jaruwat, who… create this very visibly queer friend group dynamic? This communicates a ton to me almost instantly, very early in the show, particularly with Dynamite living in some sort of like tenement housing, and then having really no one else to rely upon when someone died in the apartment above his, and contaminated the apartment he lived in, so he ends up moving in with Samsee. 

It’s a very obvious story to me as a queer person, that he had to finish school early because he could not stay home. And he has no one else to rely upon except his closest friends when he's in trouble. Samsee is communicated as a person who is like ‘I don't want nobody in my house,’ but immediately opened up his house to Dynamite when Dynamite was in trouble, because where else was that kid gonna go? 

And so, with Dynamite, we eventually learn that he was kind of getting picked on when he first got into the school with the rest of them, because… obviously he's a kid, and boys suck. And Fire saves him from this bullying instance, which almost read as a bashing? And this clearly rearranged his view about who he is in his life, where he recognized that he was gonna get clocked regardless. And so he was just going to be who he is. Fire gave off this whole fuck-you aura that he was clearly drawn to, and so he didn't go at Fire timid, because that's not what he saw in Fire. 

Dynamite spends the early part of the season determinedly pursuing Fire, who feigns annoyance about this, but is eventually revealed to… not want Dynamite to stop pursuing him. When he gets drunk and calls Dynamite out to come hang out with him, he tells him very directly: ‘even if I say no, don't stop.’ Which, very familiar to me dealing with my own closet issues and a bunch of other closeted folks growing up. 

Fire and Dynamite work really well for me, because familial acceptance is something that they're both struggling with. When Dynamite reveals his story to Fire, he tells Fire that he's okay with Fire not being ready to come out. Even if it's something he would prefer they do, he has lived through the worst things you can experience when you come out, which is losing your family support network. I really like that Dynamite’s understanding and belief in him is clearly what allows Fire to rebuild his sense of himself when he finally tells his mom that he cannot live up to this ideal that she has of him. That's built out from him recognizing who he is, because Dynamite has helped him figure that out. 

Dynamite hits a really specific queer note for me, because they create a character who I think is genuinely funny to watch, but you can feel a lot of his queer angst running underneath him the whole time, and they don't overextend it and make it be [laughs] way too melodramatic. Like his character’s just not gonna behave that way. I really like the way Dynamite has accepted the reality of his world, and has decided to build his own space in it, and it started with his friends. 

Most of these shows often get queer characters wrong in that they don't have like a reliable queer support network around them before they go rushing into some fuckin’ romance with some guy that's supposed to be the romance of their lives. Very glad that in this particular case, Dynamite has rock solid besties as he's pursuing Fire.

NiNI

In terms of other characters that I really responded to—and Shan's gonna like pick up the torch and run with it here—I loved Off as Ten.

Shan

Yeah!

NiNI

I am a recent Off convert. I really started getting into Off around Not Me, because the roles that I was seeing him play, from Not Me and continuing, I could see the growth that he's had over the years, and I really liked the energy that he was starting to bring to his roles, the maturity and the gravitas that he was starting to bring, whether it was something serious, like playing Sean in Not Me, or Mote in Midnight Motel, which I really enjoyed—or even, especially actually, playing Ten in a comedy like this. I mean, I just bought it 100%. They put Off on screen in those glasses, and the first thing we saw him do was argue with his dad, and I was like, yes absolutely, I am here, let's do this. 

I love the character of Ten. He's such a combination of tightly wound ball of stress and also incredibly fun and relaxed human being. I don't know how those two things work in one character, but they do, and Off plays both sides of him, I think brilliantly. I really enjoy getting into why he wanted to be a doctor, and the little mini arc that we had towards the middle of the series where he gets to recommit to being a doctor because he had sort of slid off course slightly. And he gets to recommit to, ‘no this is really what I want to do, I want to save people.’ Really loved that. The angst that he had around his mom dying, the angst that he had around his dad moving his girlfriend in, apparently it seems not too long after that… there's just a lot happening with Ten, but through it all he's just so delightful as a character. He saw Prem, he decided: ‘Yep, that's the one for me.’ He pursued him openly, he was just very forthright and honest at every step of the way, communicating all the way through… just love it. Love the character, loved Off in the role. I know. Shan's gonna, like, take that and run with it. [laughs]

Shan

I just want y'all to know—

NiNI

Shan is a babii, Shan loves Off.

Shan

I am living. I am getting my whole life right now. I just want you all to know, all of you listeners, that I was pretty much the lone babii around here until very recently. [laughs] I have always been an Off girlie, I have loved him since way back in the Puppy Honey days, I've always found him so charming. 

He started out as a pretty untested untrained actor and we've seen him grow across his roles, and so a lot of people have only kind of recently, in his last couple of shows, like fully come on board. But I have always been an Off girlie. I know that this show has turned Ben into a full blown babii, finally, [laughs] and that NiNi has come around on Off, and it's been very amazing to see. 

For my money, Ten is Off’s best character. They found the perfect character at the perfect time for him to play to all of his strengths. What's great about Ten — everything that NiNi just said is true, he's a very well written, very well-rounded character, and I love him specifically as a romantic lead. He has some really important qualities that you typically don't see in romantic leads, and that's why so many romcoms and romances are frustrating. Ten is a very honest person. He's a straightforward person. He is loyal. He kind of insists on building trust and on talking things through. 

One of my favorite things that happened in the final stretch of episodes was, Ten found in Prem’s room this sticky note that Pang had written, that said something like ‘the money from scamming Doc’ or something like that, basically making a joke about Prem scamming Doc for money. Ten found this sticky note and… he got his feelings hurt about it. He was like, ‘wow like, this kind of seems like you all were mocking me, this hurts my feelings.’ And in a typical drama you would see that turn into a big conflict. You would see the person who found the sticky note not saying anything about it, maybe be passive-aggressive, probably leave and go sit in their hurt feelings by themselves and then later it would blow up into a big fight. That's not what happened here, because Ten wouldn't let it happen. He takes the sticky note directly to Prem and he says ‘I found this, it kind of hurt my feelings, can you explain what this is about?’ And then he actually listens to Prem. And Prem apologizes because it was kind of mean-spirited, and he admits that. And then Ten says ‘OK, thank you for telling me. I forgive you, I'm gonna let it go.’ 

And I just love that! You don't see that kind of mature communication very often in romance at all, let alone in BL that's typically centered on younger characters. That was what Ten was like through that entire arc. He was just so honest. He wouldn't let silly misunderstandings get in the way. He always made sure to be very clear with Prem about what he wanted and what he was feeling. And he was respectful when Prem wanted space, but he always made sure that Prem knew that he was waiting there for when he was ready for more. Such a good model for a romantic lead, and because of those qualities in him, he and Prem ended up becoming a great couple that just—were a team. They faced things together. Our friend Twig called them a battle couple. They faced challenges together and didn't let things come between them. 

We haven't really mentioned Chef Chang Ma, who sucks and we hate him.

Ben

Sorry, Victor, your character sucks.

Shan

Your character sucks! He's a mentor to Prem, but he's also trying to hit on him the whole time. He's super inappropriate, he's always crossing boundaries, he's kind of a piece of shit, if I'm being real honest. But that guy was not able to get between Ten and Prem at any point, because every single time he tried, they communicated with each other, and figured out how to get back on the same page, and worked around him or shut him down. 

This couple's gonna stick with me in that they were able to work through so much together, and that they really sincerely made each other happy and made each other more confident and better at the things that they wanted to be better at. It was just lovely. I really loved this romance.

Ben

I'm going to continue behind Shan and continue praising Off Jumpol on this one, because I have not been kind to that man for the last decade. [laughs] He has not always been necessarily my favorite ambassador for BL. He's come a long way. This is definitely his best BL role. 

I'm making a Venn diagram after we're done with this recording, and it's just going to be Patts from La Pluie and Ten from Cooking Crush, because these characters have a lot of great crossover traits I really like. They're really kind with their partner and their friends, but… they have a temper, and it comes out with people they don't like. Off is funny, but also he's really good at playing… kind of pissy characters, and I'm really glad that they were like, ‘we gotta have Off be pissy with somebody. Let's make the correct choice for once, and not make it Gun that he's gonna be pissy with.’

Shan

[laughs] The crucial change!

Ben

Let's make him be pissy with his dad!

Shan

Mhm.

Ben

An excellent choice. And why is he pissy with his dad? Because his dad's a doctor. He didn't save his mom. That's a fairly valid reason to be pissy with someone about. And I think it works in terms of the family dynamics they go into. The dad's not going to tell his son that he's hurting because he feels like he failed to save his wife, the only woman he says he'll ever marry. He clearly cares about his son, because despite the way his son’s always talking out his fucking ass at him, he's not really punished him in any way. Despite the fact that Ten is clearly upset about the mom, and the dad in relation to that.

Shan

Yeah! Ten’s scenes with his dad were intense, and he was not being respectful and backing down in those scenes, ever. In this finale, he, like, took a power pose across the table from his dad, sat down at the other end of the table, planted himself firmly, and was like, ‘this is my boyfriend, and you are gonna fucking deal with it.’ I love that shit!

Ben

This is what I mean with the implied writing, because the way the stepmom is playing, she is way too familiar. It's very clear she's meant to be read as younger…

Shan

Mm-hmm.

Ben

And is trying to figure out what line she's supposed to take between being the partner of an older man, but also being closer in age to the kids. And like they mirror the positioning, she's sitting next to the dad, at the same position that Prem is sitting next to Ten. And there's this whole, ‘you brought this woman here. I wasn't consulted. This is my boyfriend. You're not getting consulted.’ And so I think the conflict between Ten and his dad is really great. Off needs to have, like, hostile conflict with other characters, because that's what we want to get out of him as an actor [laughs], directed in useful ways at his dad and at Chang Ma, and not at Gun's character, which is usually the problem I have with them in their shows.

00:32:08 - CC: Final Comments and Ratings

Ben

I was really glad to get a solid romcom out of OffGun. They also gave us some really ridiculous hilarity moments, like, they got that shot with their hands in the oven glove, twice? [Shan laughs] Unhinged. Holy shit.!

Shan

The interior oven glove shot? Amaaaazing. 

NiNi

Off getting hit in the face with Chinese kale? Not something I ever knew that I needed, but oh my god, I needed it.

Shan

Ten—he’s a big-ass goofball, which we saw with his fantasy sequences! Every time they were having cooking lessons, he was having fantasies in his head about Prem and various food items. [laughs] And they were the wackiest shit. Listen, I wish GMMTV would stop playing these games, but there was a YouTube version that had a lot of scenes cut from it and a WeTV version that had the full scenes. A lot of these food fantasies got cut from the YouTube version, but these sequences just really let you into Ten’s head, how wild and weird he was getting in there, and I just loved seeing that aspect of his character.

NiNi

It was a lot of fun. I have some dings, I have some critiques. The final episode went a little bit flat. They did round out and complete every single arc, except maybe one. But it did feel a little pat at the end? And out of left field, Pang and Samsee getting together in the end of the final episode.

[all laugh]

Shan

That was quite a choice—I was shipping Metha and Samsee for the whole show.

Ben

I was—

Shan

I was kind of disappointed.

Ben

I was disappointed.

Shan

I didn’t expect to actually get Metha and Samsee, but I kind of hoped that they would have left the door open for it. Firmly closing that door with having him get together with Pang at the last episode? I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.

NiNi

It was a choice. But. It did kiiind of work, and the only reason that it kind of worked is because of my first nominee of the year for the Mark Pakin 6th Man award, and that is Dome Jaruwat.

Shan

Mmm! Dome was great.

NiNi

Dome is a great supporting actor.

Ben

You wanna know how good Dome is? I've been half joking about rewatching Until We Meet Again since we started doing this show. I haven't actually started until recently, because watching Dome every week reminded me that he sang on the Until We Meet Again soundtrack. And I had to go back and start watching the show.

NiNi

Yeah, cause Dome is primarily a musician, you do forget, but he is actually a very good supporting actor. When he shows up, I am always delighted anew by how good he is.

Shan

I've seen other shows that had him in it, but this is the first one where I really sat up and paid attention to him. He was fantastic as Samsee. And he got some real shit to do. One of the big conflicts in the final run of the show was about the way that these new romances were affecting the friendships. Dynamite and Prem were paying attention to their boyfriends, they were blowing Samsee off, they were missing cooking practice, and he was feeling some kind of way about it. He was kind of feeling a little bit abandoned. And it was just awesome that the show actually took that seriously, not just in letting Samsee express his feelings and get mad and have the other characters take that seriously and care? But they actually very deliberately, in the narrative, prioritized the friendship reunion and makeup scene over Ten and Prem getting together and making their relationship official. They had Ten approach with the intention of asking Prem to be his boyfriend, and stop and see that they were repairing their friendship in that moment, and back off and walk away.

Ben

It felt really important for BL, because BL friends are so ridiculous. BL friends are basically shippers half the time. Like, if they see, like, one of the boys is possibly getting with another boy that becomes the only thing that that character cares about.

Shan

Everyone's a fujoshi.

Ben

I like that that wasn't the case here! I like that Samsee had genuine beef with his friends deprioritizing him, when they were in the midst of something really important to them as a group that they've been working towards for a long time. Like, are you all fucking up our big project for dick? Come on!

Shan

This show really let its side characters shine. It was a really good showcase for a couple of actors: I think Dome and Aungpao, in particular…. Tum also got great stuff, Neo got to do great stuff… We haven't even mentioned Prem's grandma, who was also awesome.

Ben

She was great.

NiNi

Amazing. She was so good.

Shan

Fantastic, no nonsense, cut the bullshit, but at the same time, very loving and supportive. She was awesome. I loved her.

Ben

There's a little bit of a dropped bit that happens in episode 11, that I kind of wish the show hadn't cut out as much. Fire and Dynamite go back to Fire’s place and the mom comes out of Fire’s room in this very weird jumpscare, and Fire has the closet panic and ends up kicking Dynamite away from him. And he kicks Dynamite hard enough that he goes flying across the room and gets hurt a bit. And I kind of wish they had followed up on that scene. Because… I feel like Fire, recognizing that he actually hurt Dynamite is probably one of those things that tilts him on to the other end of ‘I'm going to come out now.’ And I kind of wish the show had followed up on that properly and let us see Fire make the decision.

Shan

Yeah, I do wish that the pacing of the Fire and Dynamite plot had been a little different in the final episodes? I think that it ended up feeling a little bit rushed at the end, and I think that was just about the timing of the beats. If a couple things had shifted back a little bit, I think it would have worked. As it was, it kind of all got shoved into the finale, and so it felt a little too quick, a little too easy. I like where it landed… like NiNi said earlier, the way that all of these story arcs ended felt correct and felt right. They rounded everything out. It's just that some of the beats in the final stretch got kind of weirdly compressed.

Ben

It was a little bit frustrating for me because Dynamite and Ten are both very forward and overt pursuers of their romantic interests, and I kind of wish that the two couples’ romantic pacing had been better aligned across the show.

NiNi

And again, that goes to the editing. It's a good show, it's incredibly well written and incredibly well acted, but I think that the direction and the editing let it down a little bit, and that's why for me, it got an 8.5.

Shan

I gave it a 9. The show was such a positive experience. I was so excited every Sunday morning to watch it, it was such a great way to start my rest day, to like, have a good vibe to take me through my Sunday. The writing was so strong, and that's the thing that I tend to care most about in shows. If the writing is strong, if the characters feel right to me? That is what I prize most in a show. The editing, the directing, definitely had some flaws. There are some things that I would change, but the most important parts of the show held up really well for me and I definitely will be returning to it often.

Ben

I think I'm going with a 9 because they got the gay portions of the show right, and I really liked the character drama of this. All the big moments for the characters in this show land correctly for me. This show held together the whole way through. And that's kind of what's good about the writing. Like when you're noticing editing issues in a show, it's because you're following the writing, and you see the editing stumbling to try and not let it down. I think the character writing is really strong and holds together for the whole show. I think the conflict writing that comes out of who these characters are is really good, and I just really like the way these characters work together. When I see these folks together in the ‘It's been years later! Let's go to Prem’s restaurant!’ it doesn't feel like a ridiculous impossibility.

Shan

I loved that flash forward. I love a time skip when it's used to tell us that everything is still good in the future, after all the conflicts have been solved in the present. I hate a time skip when it skips over conflict, but once all the conflicts are solved, yes! Take me to the happy epilogue. I love that shit.

NiNi

So that's a 9 for Cooking Crush from The Conversation.

Ben

It's a good show, it's an easy recommend.

Shan

Thank you for coming back, Off and Gun, and thank you for sticking around for The Trainee in 2024. We look forward to seeing you again.

00:41:14 - Cherry Magic: Beating Expectations and Simping for Tay Tawan

NiNi

OK, so moving on, and it's time for us to talk about Cherry Magic Thailand! Now, I am not so big an original Cherry Magic girlie as a lot of other people. I enjoyed it, I had a great time with it, but I'm not a stan of the original Cherry Magic live action from Japan, in the way that some other people are. 

Ben

I was!

NiNi

[laughs] Let's see. So, go ahead and lead us in. What is Cherry Magic Thailand about? And maybe you could talk a little bit about the original Cherry Magic as well.

Ben

Cherry Magic is about a young man, in this case named Achi, who is a low-ranking member at some sort of large corporation, who at the age of 30, because he's a virgin, gains telepathic powers. When he touches someone and makes any sort of physical contact with them, he can sort of hear their current internal monologue and what might be going on with him. He learns fairly soon after getting his powers that the hotshot salesperson in his company has been nursing a long-time crush on him, and complications ensue. There's also a very great supporting cast, which also in one portion features the same power.

NiNi

So this is an adaptation of an adaptation, or an adaptation of an original that was also adapted in another way… like [laughs] it's a little confusing. So this is originally a manga. The manga was adapted to Japanese live action. The manga has now also been adapted to a Thai live action, and then there's a third adaptation currently ongoing, which is a Japanese anime version. So there are three adaptations of this manga. We're going to talk about the Thai version in the most detail here, but I think we're going to come maybe to a couple of things to be said about the Japanese live action and the anime version. 

Shan, what were your overall initial thoughts when you heard Thailand's gonna adapt Cherry Magic and it's going to be done by GMMTV?

Shan

I was so skeptical. I am a TayNew girlie, I love them. I loved Dark Blue Kiss back in the day, so I was really excited to see Tay and New doing BL together again — I was not at all excited to see them doing Cherry Magic [laughs] when I first heard about it. I did have an affinity for the original Japanese live action. I don't think it's a perfect show, I have my own notes on it, but I did enjoy it a lot, I thought it was really well done. And I was just unsure of why GMMTV and Thailand needed to do their own version. 

That said, I was also hoping that if Thailand was going to do this, that the main purpose would be to address the biggest shortcoming of the Japanese live action, which is that in this narrative about a virgin who acquires magical powers, and then falls in love and then loses those magical powers via having sex with the person he's in love with, there was no sex! There wasn't even a kiss on screen! That was a huge flaw of that version that I hoped to see Thailand correct. And honestly, what I thought was going to be the main thing they could bring to the table in tackling this adaptation, was kind of finishing that narrative in a more sex-positive way that Thailand is kind of known for that Japan doesn't always do, particularly when they're doing their lighter BLs.

NiNi

Ben, what about you? When you heard about this adaptation, what were your thoughts?

Ben

Opposition. I was deeply opposed to this. [everyone laughs] I was not keen on a Thai attempt at this. I was kind of curious about what Thai humor would look like for this, and I was interested in the adaptation because I don't know what corporate culture in Thailand was like. So I thought that there was a real opportunity there. I was interested in a TayNew comeback, particularly because Tay hadn't really lost a step—even when he was doing other work—and I thought Newwie had gotten a lot better. And so I was excited about the two of them getting back together, and I thought that they were the best choice at GMMTV if GMMTV was going to do this. But I was not looking forward to it. 

How about you, NiNi? Did you have any initial feelings or concerns about it?

NiNi

I had no intention of watching this. [laughs] I was gonna give it a pass. I love Tay Tawan—I'm just gonna spend a few seconds here being a simp. That man is gorgeous.

Shan

He's so beautiful.

NiNi

He is so beautiful. And he is such a good actor. The first thing I ever saw Tay Tawan in was 3 Will Be Free, and I literally remember thinking, who is that? I think I might have said it out loud. Since then I have been a devotee. He can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. Tay Tawan is everything to me. 

I have not been a big fan of Newwie. When I watched the parts of the Kiss series that I watched, loved Tay, was into Tay, Newwie I wasn't really feeling. I came around on Newwie a little bit last year after watching him in The Warp Effect—I thought he did really well there. And so I was not as down on him as before, but I still didn't feel like Cherry Magic was a story that I was interested in seeing Thailand adapt necessarily? 

A, it felt like an incredibly Japanese type of story and B, the director, X Nuttapong, is not one of my favourites. I do not tend to like his work. X did Vice Versa, Theory of Love, neither of those are my favorites. So I was saying, ‘OK, I'm only now kind of starting to feel like Newwie could maybe do something. I don't really like X’s work. I think I'm going to give this a pass.’ And I did give it a pass initially [laughs]. And then all of you started watching it and getting incredibly excited about it. Somewhere near maybe episode 10, I was like, ‘ahh! Fine!’ and started watching it. And I'm glad that I did!

Ben

So Shan, since you are the TayNew girlie—I don't remember their fans are called—of The Conversation—

NiNi

Polcas, they're polcas! How do I know that? I don't know.

Shan

Yeah, I don't know what polca means, but that's what they're called. I do not identify as a polca, ‘cause I hate the name. But I do love TayNew.

Ben

Why don't you break down why this was such an excellent viewing experience for us?

Shan

I mean, you heard all that skepticism that we were all bringing to the table, right? And this show, just, like, blew us all out of the water. It was such a good adaptation, it was so impressive. There's a lot of reasons for that, and we'll get into all the things that this production did well, but right at the core of it, the most important thing, is that Tay and New just killed it in these roles. They were just absolutely perfect as Karan and Achi. 

If you're familiar with the story of Cherry Magic, you know that Karan, or Kurosawa in the Japanese version,  is meant to be this kind of otherworldly perfect man, like he's excellent at his job. He's kind to everybody. He's beautiful. His very presence is just intimidating, because he seems too perfect to be real. And of course, he's not actually perfect, he's a human being. But that's kind of the image that he has. And so Tay Tawan [laughs] honestly, is a perfect casting choice for that role.

NiNi

No notes, no notes whatsoever.

Shan

Right? That man is beautiful. Every single time he is on screen in this show, I just got to get a hold of myself, and it's difficult every single time. Seeing that man and his beauty properly appreciated by the camera, wardrobe working, hair working, everything working for him… it was just such a good role for him. Not only on the looks either, but on his performance! 

He really nailed the inherent kindness of Karan, but also the inherent loser goofiness of him, which is the part of him that you don't see on the surface, and that's the secret. He seems like this cool, suave guy, but he's actually a total simp. He's super in love with Achi, and real fuckin nerdy about it. I think Tay Tawan was really able to… balance those aspects of him so well, so that they came together believably as one person. 

And then New as Achi, I think brought a really interesting dimension, because in some versions I think that character can feel a little bit self-contained, to the exclusion of being able to empathize with others. And Achi didn't feel like that. He felt like someone who had self esteem issues, he felt like someone who was intimidated by others and wasn't always sure what he could bring to the table, but who was interested in other people, and kind, and really wanted to learn how to communicate better with others. 

I thought they both did such a great job, both as their individual characters, and then together. We already knew they had awesome chemistry, but they really brought their A game to this show in terms of developing a believable chemistry between these two characters. We got to really see, over the course of the show, Achi's awareness of his attraction to Karan build, and his feelings genuinely grow, from kind of liking him in kind of a generic way, to actually getting to know him as a real person, taking him off that idol pedestal he'd had him on in his mind, and falling in love with him genuinely, and learning how to return his affection and develop a mutual relationship together. 

This Thai version really hit all of those really important landmarks in a romantic relationship, including the physical intimacy, with perfect pacing, such genuine emotion… they just really, really sold it. They did such a good job with this show, and I'm just so happy to eat my words and to have all my skepticism proven wrong. They did awesome.

Ben

I think you're right about Tay Tawan being a good choice, ‘cause Kurosawa slash Karan is… eminently charming in a really accessible way. The big part that works for him as a character is the fact that he's such a fuckin dork! And Tay Tawan is a dork. [laughs] That is a… important piece of his public persona, that he's really charming in a way that's not always intentional on his part? It's funny when it is intentional, and it's hilarious when he trips over himself because he's like, wait, did I just do that? It's great. It works really well here. Tay Tawan.

Shan

What a man.

Ben

I say like, these boys are beautiful, like every week, but he really is gorgeous. He's just absolutely stunning to look at all the time and he is just so delightful as Karan. This is probably my favorite role for Tay. I don't think, like, it's Tay’s best work, but I think it's my favorite role for him.

NiNi

I understand exactly what you mean, because I think that his best role is Shin from 3 Will Be Free, but in terms of like a great just nailed-on role for him? It's exactly like you said: he's gorgeous and the camera loves him. And so every time the camera turns on him and shows you Achi looking at Karan, and the camera is Achi in that moment—he takes your breath away! 

When Karan goes to see Achi during Songkran and he has to basically wash himself, there's a slow-motion thing when he starts throwing the water on his face, and I just kind of literally was watching that with my chin in my palm, and just like, wowwww, full zone-out moment. The camera loves that man. And it spent so much time on letting us see how gorgeous Karan is, but especially how gorgeous he is to Achi. I thought there was some really clever camera work and it was a good use of Tay’s good looks.

00:54:13 - CM: Relationship Development and the Powers

Ben

Speaking of Tay Tawan being a dork and being perfectly selected for this: at the end of episode 3, when they are returning from the company trip, and [laughs] Achi falls asleep and ends up leaning on Karan and wakes up because Karan starts screaming in his head—

NiNi

[laughs] Screaming internally, that's so funny.

Shan

That was so perfect. There has never been a more perfect moment on television. I don't care.

NiNi

It was amazing. It was incredible. It was delightful. It was fantastic. I can't even describe it well. Like you just have to see it.

Shan

It's the way that he keeps his face so controlled…

Ben

But like you can see like his mouth opens slightly, his eyes widen a little bit.

Shan

His eyes are screaming, while his face— 

Ben

Ahhh!

Shan

And then you see the “AAAAHHH” Like on the subtitle, which is perrrrfect perfect perfect. They did so well. They had so much fun with the mind reading jokes, and there were so many of them.

Ben

There were, they got a lot of traction out of it, it was great. Like, even after that moment ends and he wakes up Achi, Achi leans against him again, and he's like, ‘I wish I could fight all of Achi’s nightmares.’

[laughs]

Shan

Every time we heard his simp thought it was so perfect, it was always something so cheesy, or he's having a fantasy about like wiping Achi's nose or something, or like dreaming of their future together. Or he's singing a love song off-key in his own head. It's just so good! [laughs]

NiNi

I actually really like the way that the Thai show used the mind reading power. I like the jokes that they made out of it better than the Japanese version.

Ben

I think that's one of the things that they had extra time for, and I think they calibrated the humor for the Thai approach really well.

NiNi

Just simple things like, after Achi tells Karan about the mind reading power and Karan decides to use it to A) get Achi to move in with him, and B) once Achi has moved in with him to quote-unquote “test” the mind reading power at every potential opportunity by saying, ‘can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?’ And just like touching him randomly… [laughs] He touched his ankle and I was just like, oh my god, ok, this is ridiculous.

Shan

My favorite—he stuck out his elbow. He stuck out his elbow like a huge dork, leaning on his shoulder. And he was like, ‘can you hear me? Can you hear me?’ It's like, it was just so charming!

Ben

My favorite thing about Karan is he was never embarrassed about how deeply attracted to Achi he was. There was a toothpaste moment, where he started having a fantasy and Achi was like ‘oh my god, bro, please step back,’ and he's like, ‘wait, you see those things, too? So you saw… oh! ok.’ And then he walked away giggling to himself.

Shan

He just thinks it's funny. Actually that is an under-discussed, really cool thing that this adaptation did. Once Achi confesses to Karan that he's been able to hear him the whole time, Karan doesn't get upset. He actually thinks it's awesome. Because to him it's so meaningful to know that this whole time, Achi has known how he feels, and Achi has decided to be around him, he's OK with it. Karan, he’s someone who seems very confident on the surface, but he's very insecure about his feelings for Achi, because he doesn't think that they're returned, and he's always very worried about whether or not he's being a burden to Achi with his feelings, whether or not he's pushing something on him that he doesn't want, he's very conscious of that and respectful of boundaries.

Ben

It's an excellent gay choice.

Shan

Right? And so for him to learn that Achi has known the whole time how he feels and has been comfortable being around him anyway actually really made him happy. He was delighted to know that he didn't have to hide himself in that way.

Ben

Achi called that out, too. He's like, ‘why is the real beneficiary of my powers Karan and not me?’ That's actually a source material joke that they brought over really well. Kurosawa learns about the powers and starts actively flirting with Achi at work. And he's like, ‘why is he better at using my powers than me?’

NiNi

As much as we love the use of the powers, I actually want to talk about the moments that he chooses not to use his powers and instead to, for example, use his words. Because part of this story is about Achi coming more into himself and learning to be bolder and to be more open with himself and his feelings. And I really enjoyed that story happening alongside the powers. One of the things I found in the Japanese version was that Adachi really, I felt, leaned on his powers perhaps a little too much, in his relationship with Kurosawa? Achi, in this version uses his powers more sparingly, and also more accidentally? Whereas in the Japanese version he uses them more deliberately.

Shan

I thought they were so intentional about it. Achi confesses earlier about having the powers in the story. He expresses clearly to Karan his fears, about how their relationship will stay intact when he doesn't have that crutch to lean on. They talk about it directly. They do their really silly practice long-distance thing because Achi's feeling so nervous about whether they'll be able to maintain their communication while they're apart and he can't touch Karan to hear what he's thinking. 

Like you said NiNi, in some really crucial moments in the later stages of their relationship development, he's not using his powers, and he doesn't even think to, because he has grown to be so comfortable with communicating with Karan, using his words and listening to Karan and trusting what he's saying. We saw that evolve over time, so that in the end, when they finally decided to have sex, it really wasn't about the powers at all. That had already been resolved and they were already on really solid footing, Achi wasn't even using them anymore in that way. I like that they did it that way, that they separated those things a little bit. They had sex when they were ready to have sex and it wasn't related to wanting to get rid of the powers; the powers were not a barrier for them.

NiNi

I really liked how they went about the whole progression of their physical intimacy.

Shan

I think it felt…really right. I felt like I could trust this show to address it in a way that not only tied off the plot of the story and the narrative, which was rooted in sex or lack thereof, but also to make sure that it felt emotionally authentic to where the characters were, that any moment of intimacy between them was building their relationship development arc. And they pulled that off so beautifully.

Ben

They have their first kiss in a way I think is really satisfying, because Achi initiates it. Which I think is an excellent choice for Achi compared to Adachi.

Shan

And it felt very earned because their relationship was already so deep at that point, and you felt like Achi was ready for it. And of course, the build to them deciding to have sex for the first time. I like the way that that played around their temporary separation. Achi went away, and they hadn't gotten there yet in their relationship—not because of any big reason, it's just the natural progression, hasn't happened yet. And I like that when Karan went to visit him, things just felt right, and they progressed. I like that the story never felt like it was artificially holding that up to get to a certain beat. It really felt cathartic to finally see these characters get there in a way that felt so, so correct.

Ben

I thought every moment of intimacy between these characters was really well calibrated for the moment, and that the two actors involved understood what they were trying to accomplish in the scene. It was really nice to see two actors with experience, who trust each other, really deliver good emotional and intimate scene work, and that is supported by even all of the non-kissing they do between their characters. Just overall, I really, truly enjoyed watching Tay and New work together with these characters.

01:02:15 - CM: Other Characters

NiNi

Let's talk a little bit about the characters outside of Karan and Achi. I really enjoyed the way that these particular versions of the side characters were done. I particularly enjoyed Pai and Dujdao from the office. Dujdao is me, I am Dujdao. She is my fave. She is the one, I love her. Pai in this version is Fujisaki in the Japanese version, and then you've got Rock who is Rokkaku, you've got Min who is Minato, and you've got Jinta who is Tsuge. 

I really liked the way that this adaptation played with those characters, and I like how they intersected with the Karan and Achi story. I always like to see the wider world of these characters and the friends and family that they have, and how their relationship fits into their relationships with their friends and their family. Watching, particularly the little office family that formed with Dujdao and Pai and Rock, and then the friendship between Achi and Jinta, which I felt a lot more strongly about in this version than I did about the friendship between Tsuge and Adachi—it's a different kind of relationship. And I personally enjoyed Achi and Jinta’s relationship a little more than I did Tsuge and Adachi’s.

Shan

I really, really loved Min and Jinta in this story. I thought those actors did a great job with these characters, I felt like they fit in really well into the narrative. Jinta and Min in their own romance, as well as Jinta's friendship with Achi—both of those threads that they were carrying complemented the main story so well: supported the themes, helped move the plot along, they were just really well integrated into this story. 

Jinta is a great character: he’s awkward and kind of introverted and weird, because he spends a lot of time alone, but he's also a kind person, and he has a generous spirit, and I think that all of that came through really well. I loved that he and Achi kind of came into their powers in parallel and then worked together to figure out how to use them and what they meant. They got a lot of good additional mind reading jokes and humor out of Jinta, both in his scenes with Achi, where they would slyly touch each other and then have mind conversations, which eventually Karan caught on to, and that was also hilarious [laughs]. 

With Min and Jinta, I liked how much in this version that was about Min figuring out what he wanted to do with his life, whether or not he should continue to pursue his passion of dancing, and through his relationship with Jinta, getting encouragement, finding new confidence, and figuring out how to do that in a way that he felt like he could make a living from. And I thought that nicely supported the themes that were going on with Achi and Karan, also learning to communicate with each other and care for each other and support each other through new opportunities. 

This show also did something really interesting with Pai and Rock. One of the big reservations when this adaptation was announced was that in the Japanese live action, Fujisaki was an aro-ace woman. She explicitly identified that way, it was plotline of the show. And I just knew that in Thailand, they were gonna put the same character in a romantic relationship, cause Thailand loves side couples and they just can't let anybody end the show single, even people who are supposed to be single [laughs] according to their identities. And so I was dreading that, honestly, I was like, ‘they're gonna have Pai get into a romance with Rock, I'm gonna hate it.’ 

But you know what? I didn’t hate it. The way that they got them together in the end was really sensitive, I think, to the fandom that they were clearly aware was out there hoping to see this character retain some of that aro-ace rep that was so meaningful to people in the Japanese live action. So I thought they were really respectful of it, I thought they did a great job with it. I think even though they got together in the end, there's still a very clear aro-ace read on Pai, and I like them together. Their scenes were fun, they have a good easy chemistry and charm, even if it doesn't feel particularly sexually charged. 

And I thought that Rock and Pai were both as well, great supporting characters in the narrative. Their connection supported the story when it needed to. All of these side characters came together really well in a way that never distracted from, and always bolstered the main narrative, which is the most important thing to me for side characters.

NiNi

When Sing Harit picks up Tay Tawan and runs off with him while he wais at the client —

Shan

[laughs] It was perfect!

NiNi

[laughs] He literally just picked him up off the ground and just runs away!

Shan

He was so good in this role, he was perfect.

Ben

I'm glad we get to keep Sing. I've been watching that man for nine years.

Shan

He always brings something great to every show he's in.

Ben

So, I am a fan of original Cherry Magic adaptation Tsuge and Minato. I like how extra Tsuge is. Asaka Kodai: I like the way he played Tsuge. I like how he focused on how weird Tsuge is, and how passionate he is about things. I like Jinta as a take on that character…I appreciate why people like him more. I don't think I like him more? But I like them both specifically. 

I like the Tsuge character, and I like how in the three versions of him I've seen adapted now, each adaptation has approached him. I genuinely enjoyed the version of Tsuge and Minato we got in Jinta and Min. I really liked the way they played together. I don't necessarily think Mark succeeded at all of Min, but I really like the way he and Junior work together. 

I like Rock in this version because Rokkaku is an aggravating character, intentionally, in the Cherry Magic story. He is far less annoying in this version than he is in Japanese versions of this character. 

I liked Pai in this one, I like the corrective fujoshi behavior that they were doing with her. I was worried at first when they leaned into the fact that Fujisaki is a shipper who has been shipping Adachi and Kurosawa for a very long time [laughs]. I like the way the Thai show ends up using that. I like the presentation of her as, ‘you can help your ship when they need to overcome an obstacle, but their moments don't belong to you.’ I loved her, genuinely. And I liked — what was her name? The manager's character?

NiNi

How could you forget my girl Dujdao?

Ben

I really liked the way they made the office manager kind of like a…auntie figure to a lot of them.

NiNi

I love how Achi accidentally brushes against her, and hears her positive thoughts about him. Because that's not a moment that they had to put in there. But I thought that it was really nice and important that Achi got to hear how much she truly cares about him.

Shan

We didn't mention the other coworkers who came at the very end of the story, when Achi traveled, but there was a whole new crew of colleagues that he got to meet on his one-month assignment at another branch. They started that episode with a little bit of anxiety around, you know, are they gonna be mean to Achi? Are they gonna pick on him? Do they think he's a snooty city person? Are they going to be homophobic? 

I love that they just turned out to be like, a good group of dudes who were pretty good at their job, needed a little help getting set up, and once Achi proved that he was there to help them and he was competent, they completely accepted him and they were lovely to him. The show is just like—everybody was trying their best all the way through and I really like that. With one exception.

NiNi

Let's talk about that exception now, let's talk about the dreaded episode 8.

Shan

Dreaded is the right phrase.

Ben

My thing is, if you're going to add to Cherry Magic, why would you add workplace sexual assault? Why would you make the boss worse? The boss is really good prior to episode 8 and he's really good after episode 8. I don't understand why in episode 8 they would have him put some sort of bullshit ‘employees can't date each other’ rule into play, and be like, ‘Alright gays: if you can prove that you are economically viable to me by hitting an unrealistic sales target and whoring yourselves out to shitty clients, maybe then I will consider letting you two homos date each other.’ 

I hated that. I hated that Karan felt like he had to go face her again, I hated that the boss knew it, and sat with Achi to be like, ‘how do you feel about that, bro?’ And then there's like, this whole sequence where she further tries to embarrass him, but then the boss decides to be like, ‘No, I have morals.’ Where were they 40 minutes ago? I just did not like the inclusion of any of that. 

It sucked too, because it was a holding pattern episode for Achi and Karan and the crew around them. Nobody really grew as a result of the events that happened there, and it just made me really resent the boss as a character. After that episode, he has a completely reasonable professional response to Achi clearly being frustrated with his role at the company. Achi, who—Karan has shown him through the course of the season—is actually a really good and really valuable employee whose efforts have gone maybe unnoticed, but that's because he's shy. And so when he recognizes that Achi is struggling professionally and wants to maybe do more, he gives him a very reasonable opportunity. Has very reasonable expectations about it, does not withhold how difficult the position may be, and has a reasonable expectation for Achi to make a decision about it. 

It was really frustrating for me to try and reconcile that version of a fairly sensible boss, who is trying to give an employee an opportunity to succeed professionally, with the guy who we got in episode 8.

Shan

It felt wrong, it didn't feel like it was of a piece with the rest of the story. We found out pretty quickly that it was not from the source material, and it was an original episode that they've decided to write because they think they needed to fill a little bit of time. It's the one blemish on the show which was otherwise so wonderful, and so it just kind of sucks that they made this choice and tarnished things a little bit by doing such an ugly extra subplot, that just wasn't needed and didn't do anything for the story.

NiNi

In the end, I'm glad it was just a subplot. And it is, to my mind, pretty easily excisable.

Ben

We just deleted the episode. Boop!

Shan

Just pretended it didn't happen and carried on, and that worked great for me personally. [Shan and Ben laugh]

01:13:51 - CM: Ratings

Ben

I will say at this point, before we get to rating that this is now my default Cherry Magic version.

Shan

Same.

Ben

I think the Thai show feels complete in a way that the Japanese experience didn't. And that's…honestly, for me, reinforced by the anime that's running simultaneously right now. What I am enjoying with the two active adaptations right now is the very different approaches to the characters. 

Karan is really sensitive to Achi and Achi is really sensitive to him in a way that I find really useful in the story, but there's a chippiness to the Japanese anime version of these characters. They are not as emotionally intelligent, they have a temper about them, there's a little bit of selfishness. Like, I think Adachi’s kind of a dick in this one, he complains about people being irritating normies a lot in a way that I find very amusing. And Kurosawa’s far more possessive—internally, he doesn't express it externally that often—in a way that I find lands more correctly for him, in comparison to maybe the way Keita Machida played Kurosawa and the way they presented him. 

I really like the Thai localization of the Cherry Magic story here, and I think it exists very peacefully alongside the current Japanese anime version and the source material, and I think it sits favorably against the original Japanese version. 

The intent of the powers to enable greater empathy and better communication between people lands far more consistently in the Thai version. I am really, truly glad that they actually did this and did a good job with it. We did not have high hopes for this motherfucker when they told us about it, and this ended up being one of the most pleasant experiences we've had in genre in a really long time.

NiNi

So, ratings. Shan, you go first: what's your rating for Cherry Magic Thailand?

Shan

I gave this show a 9.5. Could have been a 10 if not for that episode 8, but episode 8 exists, unfortunately, so it's a 9.5 for me. I found it to be such a good time, such a well-executed story. I think it was a masterful adaptation. It did such a good job taking this Japanese story and translating it into something that felt of a piece with Thai culture. The performances were excellent. The whole production was great. I loved how thoughtful everything was. It was such a good show for me. I wish I could go back to before I watched it, and watch it again and be delighted anew.

NiNi

Ben, how about you?

Ben

Similarly, I gave it a 9.5; I think this was an excellent experience. I think it was really enjoyable week to week, and this is what I want out of my BL TV viewing experience. I got to look forward to it every week, and I walked away from it satisfied. One of my favorite TV experiences is when a show is really good, without me instantly yearning for more. I had a really great anticipation of it when a Saturday morning rolled around, and I felt really good for the rest of the Saturday after watching it, and I didn't feel like I was missing something all week because it wasn't on. It was something that I really looked forward to on Saturdays. That is the ideal TV show experience, for me. And I don’t get to have that very often. I really, truly appreciate it that this show was one of the better or best week-to-week viewing experiences I've had for years. 

9.5 for episode 8.

NiNi

I scored the show a 9.75.

Ben

Oh my god.

Shan

[laughs] Wait, are we allowed to do .25?

Ben

We're not. She can do it, though. [laughs]

Shan

She’s cheating!

NiNi

I am calling producer privilege to give it a 9.75! No, but the subplot in episode 8 really is a ding, but also I really loved this show. The ding had to be dinged, but I will find it very easy to excise that subplot from my memory of the show and move on. Also, I didn't have to sit in it for a week like you guys did because I was binging it, so it's easier for me, I think, to just kind of be like, pfft! Over that.

Ben

Let me tell you, that was a difficult week for us.

Shan

It was a bad week. We were scared.

Ben

We have been in this position with Thai BL where things are going great, and then episode 8 rolls around and like, oh, here we go. That was not a great week with this show’s experience. We were not really anticipating—we were hoping it wouldn't be shit, picking up with the cliffhanger of Achi revealing his powers to Karan. That was a good choice, that allowed us to focus on the future, not the past.

NiNi

And then you were immediately rewarded in episode 9 with the kiss!

Shan

Sure were!

Ben

And then they reminded me of the boss's bullshit in the finale. He's like, I'm throwing away my stupid policy. I'm like, ‘why would you bring that back up?’

Shan

Don’t bring it up! We’re trying to pretend it didn't happen!

Ben

I had just forgiven you, you motherfucker. Shut the fuck up. [all laugh]

NiNi

All right. All right. [laughs] OK, so 9.5, 9.5, 9.75 fine, it gets a 9.5 from The Conversation.

Ben

We highly recommend it! It is a good viewing experience.

Shan

Everyone should watch it. 

NiNi

Fantastic show.

01:19:34 - The Pillars: Overall Thoughts

NiNi

OK, so we've just spent the last — I don't know how much time this is going to be edited—

Ben

It's going to be a long edit for you, that's for damn sure. [laughs]

NiNi

We have just spent the last maybe two-ish hours talking about our OGs, and the stuff that they've been in this year. OG to new G, so to speak. Let's talk a little bit about the pillars, about the experience of watching these people do what they know how to do really well at this point. Shan, what's your experience been like?

Shan

It was so lovely for me. I am an OffGun and a TayNew girlie. I have been a fan, I love those pairs. I am not a big fan of the branded pair system, to say the least—I think that it can be really damaging sometimes in the Thai media landscape, but I think that these two pairs have worked together for a really long time and they've figured out what works well for them. And they have also gone off and done other things, they don't only work together making BLs. All of these four actors have very full careers. And so I'm very happy that they were able to bring them back and pair them with such great projects. 

Candidly, these are my two favorite Thai shows of this entire season. They knew what they were about, they executed them really well, and they used the pairs at the center of them to all the best of their abilities and their strength. I'm glad to see that they're planning to continue to work together. Both TayNew and OffGun have announced their next projects already for 2024, and I'm excited to see more adult BL from these guys.

Ben

To be clear, we are not certain that Peaceful Property or whatever it's going to be called is actually going to be a BL.

Shan

I don't need them to make out to enjoy their presence together, so I'll be happy either way.

NiNi

I don't care if it's a BL—I would prefer it to be BL, but Peaceful Property just looks like a good-ass time, so I'm going to enjoy that. I wasn't planning to watch The Trainee, but after Cooking Crush I'm gonna watch The Trainee. I've dialed in to the OffGun of it in this particular direction. I just like Off doing comedy.

Ben

He is good at comedy.

Shan

So good at it

NiNi

I really enjoy it. Not only watch him doing comedy, but watch him doing comedy now. Because he has improved, he has grown, he's really dialed into what he's good at, and he can portray it in a way that I don't think he used to be able to. So, I am looking forward to watching The Trainee definitely. 

News news, apparently the third of our pillars coming back is a possibility? So there are three OG pillars for GMMTV. Like we said, OffGun, TayNew, and the third OG pillar was Krist and Singto. We got word recently that Singto’s coming back to GMMTV? So that's an interesting thing. I don't know necessarily that there's going to be new KristSingto stuff, but…

Shan

Krist has already teased it on social media.

Ben

Krist has teased it, but he said that they won't tell him information because he usually leaks it.

Shan

Right. But he said he wants to do another project with Singto. They've put it out there, maybe as a little bit of a test balloon to see if people are interested in it. So I wouldn't be surprised if we find out next year that they're going to be doing another BL together.

NiNi

I wouldn't be surprised if we find that out in April, when the Part 2 of the GMMTV thing comes out.

Ben

[sigh] OK, I'll talk about this. We need to own that has not been a good run for Singto, for about three to four years now. He hasn't really had a solid win in a while. And I don't know that I want him and Krist back together. This is such a weird choice to make, coming off of Be My Favorite where I was like, ‘OK, Krist, you've grown as a performer. I thought you were used well here, I thought your reputation, whether it be right or wrong was used well here. And I'm willing to put all this aside and move forward.’ 

And now I'm feeling triggered [laughs] by the news that he and Singto will be back together. I'm not necessarily thrilled about it. Like, yeah, we had a lot of skepticism about Cherry Magic, blah, blah, blah, coming into this. And that ended up being fine. But like… [sigh]

Shan

None of my reservations were about the pairs, though. It's all about the material. Here, Krist and Singto don't have good chemistry.

Ben

I don't think they do at all.

Shan

We know that. They did two, three shows together over several years of working together. Did not manage to produce believable chemistry as a pair.

Ben

I'm not keen on it.

NiNi

OK, so here's what I'm gonna say.

Ben

Go ahead, bestie.

NiNi

I have been wrong about all of their recent projects. I haven't watched any really old things or stuff since he left GMMTV, but in terms of Be My Favorite, in terms of Cooking Crush, in terms of Cherry Magic Thailand, I have been wrong. And so I am willing to give any new KristSingto project a shot.

Shan

Oh I'm going to watch it. If they make it, I'm going to watch it. I need to know.

Ben

It's not about whether or not we're going to watch it.

Shan

Yeah.

NiNi

[laughs] They're all like, ‘oh, no, we're watching it! Nobody said we weren't gonna watch it.’ [laughs]

Shan

We will be watching it and we will be having takes! That is what we will be doing. I continue to be skeptical about the two of them being able to generate believable chemistry together. Maybe they could do a show that's not a BL. Maybe they could try that.

Ben

I won't watch that, that's for sure! [Shan laughs]

NiNi

We're talking about OG to new G. Maybe we could do some mix-match merry-go-round with Perth and Chimon.

Shan

I'd be OK with that!

Ben

Oh my god.

NiNi

Get some new pairings out of it.

Ben

There are no more—I—why are we giving Perth and Chimon another ch—Why would you bring them up in this conversation?

NiNi

Mix match merry go round! Mix up the pairs! Maybe they'll work better with other people.

Shan

I think Krist and Singto both need to be paired with strong screen partners who can bring that chemistry piece, because neither of them is particularly good at it on their own, and together it just doesn't happen. I don't know how much of this we should even allow to air. We're going to get shot by their fans.

Ben

I do not care about them. You can be mad.

NiNi

I don’t care [laughs].

Shan

What is their fandom called?

NiNi

It's Peraya.

Shan

Peraya that's right.

NiNi

Peraya ask me how I know. I don't know how. I know. I just pick up these things by osmosis.

Shan

I am not a Peraya. I want this to be very clear.

Ben

I am not either.

NiNi

But like, OK, so we've established that Perth needs a good lead and Chimon needs a good follow, and Krist is, I think, a better follow than a lead, and Singto is a better lead than I think a follow. So maybe they mix them up, maybe they get something good out of it.

Ben

Mm, anyway. So. [laughs]

NiNi

Y'all are mean to my baby Perth and I'm not having it.

Shan

NiNi I appreciate the spirit of this brainstorm. I think it's worth a try [laughs]

Ben

I don't. [laughs]

NiNi

Perth, if you ever listen to this, don't listen to the mean people. It's OK. I love you.

Ben

Look, I love Perth. But it's not been a good year for him. I'm sorry, baby boy.

Shan

I think it's been very cool, though, sincerely, to see the OGs come back around. I like that we're no longer saying [laughs] that BL is a young man's game, you gotta get out when you turn 30. I like that we're letting some of GMMTV's older talent headline these shows and that we're getting some shows about adults. That's all super welcome, and I think it's really nice too, to see pairs like Tay and New and Off and Gun, who are real veterans with handling all of this stuff around making BLs together—handling the BGP, handling all of the fan attention, they do it with a lot of grace and very professionally, in a way that I think is helpful to see a model for for some of the younger pairs. 

I think it's helpful for fans also to be reminded of how they should engage with actors who are doing their job when they're making these shows. GMMTV is going to continue to dominate Thai BL for the foreseeable future, so I think it's good that they're bringing these veterans back and doing good work with them.

Ben

I agree. I think OffGun and TayNew have been on the forefront of the development of Thai BGP for a long time, and it's really good to see them seem confident and comfortable about it at this point. Both of these pairs have had some negative experiences with fan behavior, so. I'm very glad that those two pairs were able to continue working together, continue to make projects together, and in this particular case, deliver two of the most satisfying viewing experiences we've had in the last three to four months. I'm pleased.

Shan

They killed it. Amazing work.

NiNi

I, too, am pleased. I wasn't in the OG thing. I wasn't shooting with y'all in the gym then, but I'm here now and what I saw this time around I truly enjoyed. I'm never going to be a babii. I'm not going to be a a polca. I'm never going to be a peraya. I'm just not a fan like that. I fan, I don't stan, I always say, except for, [laughs] you know, the large ones.

Shan

For a couple exceptions.

NiNi

Except for the bigguns. The pillars thing has always been like the super weird thing for me, and this is the first experience that I've had with it that it wasn't weird and slightly creepy for me, which I truly enjoyed. So yeah, good job, boys. Excellent work, 10 out of 10, no notes. 

So, that is going to wrap us up on our pillars episode: we out! Say bye to the people, Shan.

Shan

Goodbye people.

NiNi

Ben, say bye to the people.

Ben

Peace!

#cooking crush #cherry magic thailand #cherry magic th #podcast #lgbtq #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #on art #thai bl #bl series #spring series #spring 2024 #cherry magic #cooking crush the series #offgun #taynew

[the-conversation-pod]

Spring 2024 Teaser

And we're back!

This has probably been our longest recording season ever thanks to the scope of projects we wanted to feature here. Some of the projects started in 2023 while others only finished at the end of March.

This season is packed with guests! Beyond the usual appearances from @ginnymoonbeam and @lurkingshan, you'll get to hear from our friends @so-much-yet-to-learn, @wen-kexing-apologist, and @twig-tea as we talk about the continued presence of OffGun and TayNew, our first dedicated GL episode, a discussion of what may be the longest running BL project, a breakdown of shows that started strong but finished weak, and a massive two-part Grab Bag episode to cover a wide gamut of projects.

You're going to be with us for many weeks, so stay tuned for our releases.

Enjoy teaser for the season.

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (thanks to ongoing efforts from @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

Ben

And we're back. We have missed you all. We are finally done with all the VIIB Awards. We're finally done with watching way too much shit this season. and we have so much to talk about. I'm very excited about this season because, finally, I won. We talked about way too much Japanese stuff this season.

NiNi

[laughs] Ben, at the end of last season in the year in review, he said definitely Japanese is where it's at going into this year. And so far looking back in the winter, some of the stuff that I have probably mostly enjoyed, to be fair, has been some of the Japanese work. So, I am on the ride, I'm on the train with you all. There will be a lot of JBL being talked about in here. A little bit of some other stuff, but yeah, a big chunk of it's going to be J-BL and J-BL-adjacent? So that's what you'll be looking forward to.

Ben

The season is one where we're talking about the history and evolution of the genre a lot. We're going to have an episode focusing on GMMTV continuing to work the OffGun and TayNew angle, and how we responded fairly positively to that. 

We're going to talk about the ongoing experience from Japan via Ossan’s Love. 

We're going to finally get to talk about GL in its own episode on the show, and it's not just going to be one project that we're losing our minds over here. 

We decided to properly reflect on some shows that were trying to do something and did not really deliver the way that we hoped, or maybe even the show hoped, they would. 

And then we're going to do two back-to-back grab bag episodes because, while there was a ton of stuff that happened in this season, we weren't able to organize them into a cute setting. So we're going to unpack some genre stuff in one episode and all of the extra Japanese stuff in its own episode because there is just that much of it. 

As always, some of you sent us some questions. Thank you. And we have a new segment with one of our friends that we're really excited for you to see in the back half of the season. 

I’m Ben.

NiNiI'm NiNii. Welcome to the Brown Liquor Podcast, AKA The Conversation about BL.

#ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #podcast #on art #lgbtq #thai bl #bl series #spring series #spring 2024

[the-conversation-pod]

I have a primal need to boop The Conversation. Enable, pretty please?

Paging the rest of the team @bengiyo @lurkingshan @ginnymoonbeam ...what do these words mean? 😂

[the-conversation-pod]

REMINDER! Get yer questions and comments in!

AND WE'RE (ALMOST) BACK!

What's up Convo Squad! (Still no? We WILL find the right name!)

It's March, the weather is warming, the buds are emerging and our spring series production has begun. Our inbox is open for questions and comments until the end of this month, so go ahead and send us a note of the written or spoken variety as inclined. We ALWAYS love hearing from y'all, join in the conversation!

Season 6 of The Conversation will be released over the month of April, and as usual we've got a jam packed season of shows and guests for you, our loyal listeners. Until then, please check out our back catalogue and recommend us to your internet friends!

See y'all soon!

Ben, NiNi, Ginny and Shan

#the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #podcast #on art #spring series #spring 2024 #season 6

[the-conversation-pod]

AND WE'RE (ALMOST) BACK!

What's up Convo Squad! (Still no? We WILL find the right name!)

It's March, the weather is warming, the buds are emerging and our spring series production has begun. Our inbox is open for questions and comments until the end of this month, so go ahead and send us a note of the written or spoken variety as inclined. We ALWAYS love hearing from y'all, join in the conversation!

Season 6 of The Conversation will be released over the month of April, and as usual we've got a jam packed season of shows and guests for you, our loyal listeners. Until then, please check out our back catalogue and recommend us to your internet friends!

See y'all soon!

Ben, NiNi, Ginny and Shan

#the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #podcast #on art #spring series #spring 2024 #season 6

[the-conversation-pod]

Season 1 Transcripts are Available

Thanks to the quiet-but-never-unnoticed efforts of the transcription team, we have been able to deploy the transcripts for the original three-part VIIB Awards as well as our first Lagniappe episode.

Be sure to send @ginnymoonbeam, @lurkingshan, and @wen-kexing-apologist your thanks.

VIIB Awards 2023 Part 1: Actors and Ships

VIIB Awards 2023 Part 2: Behind the Scenes

VIIB Awards 2023 Part 3: Best in Class

Winter 2023 Lagniappe

#podcast #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #lgbtq #thai bl #bl series #winter series #japanese bl #korean bl #taiwanese bl #filipino bl

[the-conversation-pod]

Winter 2024 Lagniappe

We've reached the end of a long and ambitious season for us. We brought you our normal episodes and also a five-part award show. With that all behind us, come listen to NiNi, Ben, Shan, and Ginny answer some questions and unwind about the end of the year.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction 00:03:24 - Inbox: Holding back takes for the podcast 00:05:39 - Inbox: Under-discussed topics in the discourse 00:12:44 - Inbox: The draw of Japanese BL 00:20:45 - Inbox: Stories about older characters 00:25:22 - Inbox: Cross-country adaptations 00:31:21 - Inbox: Biggest wins and losses of the BL industry in 2023 00:36:38 - Inbox: The next big BL trope wave 00:40:30 - Inbox: Welcome back, Kotter and Go home, Roger 00:46:45 - Inbox: To all the lurkers 00:49:31 - 2023 Headlines 00:53:31 - Best Boy and Best Girl 00:56:17 - 2024 QL Resolutions 01:01:43 - The BGP! 01:11:05 - The Year Ahead (GIVE US LESBIANS!) 01:24:58 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back. It's been a long season, probably [laughs] our longest season. But we are finally here at the Winter Lagniappe! Here's all of the extra that we could not fit into the neat formatting of the rest of the season.

NiNi

I'm so happy that you called the formatting neat. It makes me feel all glowy inside, you know, as a tyrant perfectionist that I keep trying to be.

Ben

Every day I have to restrain myself from rearranging things on your very, very organized spreadsheet.

NiNi

[laughs] We can have a spreadsheet conversation after the season is over. 

So, Ben and I are here and we are here with guests. Well, I can't call these people guests now. At this point, they are family. Welcome to our transcription team, Ginny and Shan.

Shan

Helloooo!

Ginny

Hey there!

NiNi

We're in a celebratory and festive mood, so we wanted to get together and just break down the year, answer some listener questions that came in, and just have a great time? Round up the year, look forward to next year, and then we'll be out.

Ben

First order of business before we get to the questions. I hope you all enjoyed the Holiday Clip Show ‘cause they ate my ass up on that damn show!

[everyone laughs]

NiNi

Ooh, bestie.

Ben

When I was sent the final audio, and I'm listening to it pre-transcript, and you called me [laughs] ‘evangelical’ about What Did You Eat Yesterday? I screamed in my house.

[NiNi laughs]

Ginny

Oh, I knew I was gonna be in trouble for that! It came out of my mouth and I was like, “Ooh…yeah, I'm gonna hear about that one.”

Shan

I think the clips backed you up, Ginny. [laughs]

NiNi

I found it personally delightful, and I quite enjoyed editing that. It was like [laughs] “Ben’s gonna really get a kick out of this!”

00:03:24 - Inbox: Holding back takes for the podcast

Ben

All right. That out of the way, Shan, please take us into the first question.

Shan

All right, my pleasure. So, friend of the podcast, @sorry-bonebag writes, “How do you each decide which takes or responses to shows should go on Tumblr as the shows are airing and which should wait for the podcast? Or, are the Tumblr and podcast audiences different enough that you don't really worry about repetition?”

Ben

NiNi, you've been a little bit reclusive on Tumblr lately. Do you think about not sharing things for the podcast?

NiNi

No. Even when I wrote a lot on Tumblr, I wrote on an episodic basis, and the podcast is deliberately about taking the long view on things. So at least when I was writing a lot, it just didn't occur to me to hold stuff back, other than at the very beginning when you and I were not talking to each other between seasons and all of that. When we're still trying to figure out how this was gonna work. But since then, I don't feel like there is overlap between anything that I write on Tumblr and what we talk about on the show. 

Ben, how about you?

Ben

Yeah, I’m with NiNi. The listening audience and the Tumblr audience overlap heavily, so the people who are listening to us are likely our friends and mutuals and other folks who hang out with us in BL space on Tumblr. And I don't feel like there's anything wrong with me sharing my thoughts in real time on Tumblr via the Stray Thoughts thing and then discussing the show as a project after the fact, because, like NiNi says, we reflect. 

So it's probably more fun because it sort of completes the arc for the people who follow us closely. ‘Cause you've watched me half shitpost about a show for 8 to 12 weeks, and then a couple months later you'll hear us unpacking the whole journey of it. 

I like the fact that you guys, if you follow us closely, can see our thoughts in real time and see if there's a shift from what I was writing week to week or in the final verdict versus how I feel about it once we start talking about it.

00:05:39 - Inbox: Under-discussed topics in the discourse

Shan

Bonebag had a second part of her question: “I have noticed that sometimes the Tumblr conversations about shows seem to center around specific elements, i.e. the soulmate lore for La Pluie, toxicity and shipping for Only Friends, et cetera, and sometimes it can feel like people get wrapped up in a conversation about one thing while there's something shiny off in a corner that goes under investigated. Has this been true of your experiences, and if yes, what are some aspects of shows that you feel have been under discussed either in specific shows or broadly as themes across shows?”

NiNi

Ben, you go first this time?

Ben

Do I think Tumblr gets distracted [Shan laughs] by the wrong shit in shows? Every goddamn day. Oh my go—[laughs] The thing about fandom is it's really hard to predict what people are going to get overinvested in with any particular show. The difficulty with writing in a space like this—if you are trying to stir up discourse or meta—you have to write precisely about whatever topic you care about. I agree that people get distracted by the wrong stuff, but I also think it's fair sometimes for people to get caught up in the social politics around a show, instead of the show itself, particularly when you're very online. 

NiNi?

NiNi

I can't say that I'm unaffected by the discourse. That wouldn't be truthful, because you can't be unaffected by the discourse. I mean, the whole point of us having these conversations, our whole show, is basically discourse. [laughs] So I can't say that I am unaffected by the discourse, and sometimes I don't get like, “Oh, my God, why are you focusing on this? We should be focusing on that.” But I also try to think about it in terms of, well, what is it saying that this is what people are focusing on? What is it saying about how the show is done and constructed? What is it saying about fandom? What is it saying about the audience? What is it saying about this type of show or this type of story that this is where people's minds are going in terms of the discourse? 

If I want to discuss something else, I'll put it out into the ether and see what comes back. A lot of the time it's wildly ignored, but to me, I still put it out there, and that's where I kind of land on the whole thing. I can't say necessarily people are discussing the quote-unquote “wrong thing” if I sit and think about it because they're focusing on what is important to them in digesting and reading the story. And for everybody that's gonna be different for whatever reasons that it's different. But for me, I try to take it as an opportunity to understand or to get sort of a deeper insight into both the stories themselves and into the people who are taking in the stories. 

I actually would love to get Ginny and Shan's takes on this particular part of the question, as well.

Shan

I think one of the points that you just made, NiNi, is really important, and I think about this a lot when I'm trying to kind of parse fandom discourse. And it's that, people really come to these shows for different reasons, and they discuss them for different reasons, right? So like, oftentimes when we have disconnects in the discourse, or like people start to get, maybe, unhappy with the way some people are talking about a show that they're watching, I feel like it's normally rooted in folks coming to the shows and discussing the shows from different angles. 

So like, I'm somebody who is really interested in narrative storytelling as an art, and I like to really think about what makes a good story. And I like to really dissect shows that I think are working really well, and shows that I think are maybe not working so well. And I do that kind of intellectually, not to say that I never get very emotionally attached to shows—I definitely do. But often I'm kind of taking a step back and trying to think about how the story is working. 

And for people who are watching shows more for the emotional reaction that they're having, that can sometimes feel off, because they're thinking about it in such a different way that seeing me talk about it that way feels jarring to them. And so I always try to think about that, you know, when there are things going on in the discourse that I don't connect to, there are people that are probably just trying to look at the show from the angle that they have. 

This is coming up, I think, right now in the Playboyy discourse. That's such an interesting show to think about and dissect, and it's doing so many different things, and it's really clear that the BL audience is all over the place in terms of which parts of that show we're connecting to and interested in. And so the discourse around it is a little messy. Some people are just watching the show so differently that it can be hard to bridge that gap in conversation. 

But I also think that that kind of diversity of perspective and those different ways of processing the shows that we're watching makes the conversation more interesting? My line there is always: we don't have to be coming at this from the same angle and we don't have to agree on everything we think, but we do need to give each other the space to watch the show in the way that we're watching it.

Ginny

Yeah, that's, I think, similar to how I think about it. There are a ton of people who are watching and discussing shows who are clearly just engaging on a very different level or from a very different angle than I am. And I sort of don't pay any attention to those. I live a lot of my life by the Keanu Reeves, “You know, I'm too old to care about people being wrong. You say 2 + 2 = 5. Great, have fun.” 

[Shan laughs]

So I get into that frame of mind with a lot of things. The conversations that I get really into are when I feel like someone is operating kind of from the same framework, but is seeing something differently than I see it, and that's when I get really excited about conversation. But the people who are just processing on a totally different wavelength, I'm like, “Great, I'm glad you're having a good time over there. We don't need to talk.”

NiNi

[laughs] I like that.

Ben

To answer the last part of bonebag’s question—I was thinking about that part a little bit. Things I think are under-discussed in fandom spaces. In general, for me, it's probably masculinity and masculine identity, but a lot of the audience watching, especially on Tumblr, seems to be femme, so I don't get surprised that those things end up under-discussed, because that's not necessarily how most of the audience engaging on Tumblr was socialized. Part of why I started writing in the first place was because I'm like, “They're not enough boys talking about this. I'll write about it.” Like that used to bother me, but I don't get annoyed with people about where they sit. 

Now, for my You're My Sky propaganda.

[Ben and Shan laugh]

00:12:44 - Inbox: The draw of Japanese BL 

Ginny

Our next question is from Tumblr user @ctl-yuejie. They write, “I've seen Ben really enjoy the Japanese series this year, and wanted to ask if it is more the stylistic choices or the stories told this year which drew you in, generally speaking, over the Thai shows?”

Ben

That is an old friend [laughs] from the HIStory 2: Crossing the Line era starting shit and I love her for it. 

I was doing some math on the year, and I rated 16—now 17—shows from Japan this year. Which means that of the 48—now 49—shows that I have engaged with from Japan that I tracked on MDL, a third of them came out this year. Japan is very much back in the BL game. 

It's probably style that brings me back to Japan more often than not. I think there's a melancholy to Japanese storytelling that I connect to, and I really like how incisive their work can be. I have lamented that sometimes I think the Thai productions are too long, and their editors are not as sharp. And so I think sometimes their shows meander because they’re not certain where they want to go, but all the Japanese shows that I enjoy generally know what they are about, what they want to say, and how to express that through the characters and their behaviors in their stories. And so if a Japanese story is about something, I can engage very clearly with what it wants to talk about. 

And like, we can have a more extensive discussion about whether or not I wanted to talk about that, or whether or not they did a great job talking about it, but the show itself is thematically accessible for me in a way that I find very easy to engage with. And because the shows tend to be shorter, you can have that conversation with people, I think, more easily than you can when you're reacting to a 12-episode, almost-hour-long show. I feel like because Japan doesn't rely heavily on side couples and B-plots in their stories, they're so focused that it's hard to get distracted in the conversation about something else the show was doing, because everything is usually pretty wrapped up in the main throughline. 

NiNi, this has probably been the most you've had to engage with Japanese media in your life. [laughs] How are you feeling after the last year?

NiNi

It's the thing about French film, right? I am not a lover of French film, and there’s a lot of aspects of Japanese filming tradition—not similar, but analogous to French film. So it's not that I've resisted, but I've not always found it to be to my taste. But when I have engaged with Japanese productions in the past, depending on the production, there are specific things that I have liked. So coming this year into Ben's World of Japanese BL [laughs] and getting more deeply into the rhythms of certain things about Japanese storytelling, certain things about Japanese filmmaking, certain things about Japanese culture and character building. 

It's been an interesting journey and I have found things to enjoy. I have also found things that frustrate me, like the communication piece is a huge piece for me. I know it's cultural, but one of the things that has been very clear to me about what I've watched this year is that I enjoy the shows where either the communication is… less Japanese, I guess, in the sense of, that there is a more open communication like in I Cannot Reach You. Or, where the miscommunication has a certain point and storytelling to it aspect like in My Personal Weatherman, where they are communicating, but they're still misunderstanding each other, not because of the things that they're not saying, but because of their feelings about themselves. 

So that, I find intriguing. That all said, this year I've probably enjoyed more Japanese BL on a proportional basis, given how much I watched.

Ben

[laughs] Going into this year like, “Oh yeah, I guess I gotta watch Japanese BL with Ben this year. How many could they possibly make? Like, four?”—17 shows later.

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Shan

They went for it this year.

Ben

Since we have both of you here and there's been so much Japanese BL this year, Shan and Ginny, you have any thoughts on what draws you into Japan specifically considering we have nine BL-producing countries now?

Ginny

I said sometime earlier this is the year I fell in love with Japanese BL. At the beginning of this year I was like, “Yeah, I'm not that interested in anything coming out of Japan.” Because what I had seen was mostly in the comic vein, which is not my easiest place to engage with media. Comedy is sometimes a lift for me. And honestly, the stylistic haircuts that they still have a lot of were a hard hurdle for me to get over. But then I think End of the World With You really pulled me in and is still one of my favorite things that we got this year, and some of the Drama Shower productions. 

Ben talked about the melancholy, which I love, and I started to see, even in the comic shows, the layers they're putting in. There's so much isolation and repression in so much Japanese BL that I find really compelling in stories, especially in a romance story. So yeah, I started this year like, “Eh, Japan's not my favorite,” and came out of it like, “Maybe it is, or it's definitely up there.”

Shan

I love that journey for you, Ginny. I'm so happy. It's really made my heart warm this year to see you get into JBL. 

[Shan and Ben laugh]

Ben and I are the resident JBL stans, so I'm always kind of side by side with him whenever a new one comes out and geeking out over it. It comes back to kind of what I said earlier about the way I like to engage with shows and how I like to watch them. There is rarely a Japanese BL production that does not have a tight narrative structure, a clear vision for what they're trying to say, and really high level execution on its themes, on its character work, on just the way the whole story comes together. I find them so satisfying as a viewing experience because even the weakest JBLs, where all those things aren't quite in tune, are still really strong. And you still kind of come away feeling like you understand what it was trying to communicate and why. And one of my biggest frustrations as a viewer is when I walk away from a show feeling like that aspect is muddled. Like, I don't know what a show was trying to say or what its intent was. And so I'm always here for JBL. 

I think, like Ginny, I do tend to be more personally pulled toward the darker lane of Japanese work, where they kind of get into some deeper dynamics, sometimes some social stuff, some psychosexual stuff—just kind of darker aspects of things. But I also really appreciate the light, comedy lane that they can do as well, because they do it so effectively. It really takes a lot of technical precision to do those kinds of shows well. So yeah, I'm always here for JBL. I will watch all of them, every single one that comes out, and I was really excited that we got such a good year for it.

00:20:45 - Inbox: Stories about older characters

Ginny

Second question from @ctl-yuejie was, “Speaking of good Japanese shows—What Did You Eat Yesterday?—Are there any themes or topics focusing on 30- to 40-plus year old characters that you'd like to see interpreted in 2024?”

Ben

This is the difficulty with more BL variety, particularly when dealing with older characters. Like, we can get away with Kenji and Shiro because they are a slice-of-life show, and their relationship is deepening as we watch them and that can be really engaging. But people come to BL because they like watching very pretty people look at each other and then decide to run off into the sunset together. And then we hit them with a freeze ray, and then put them on a shelf, and catalog them as yet another couple we watched. That's just the romance genre in general. 

I don't know that the audience that is here for romance is going to be interested in gay life drama. Aof tried that this year in Thailand with Moonlight Chicken, but he was clever about it because there's like a little tiny teenage BL plot in there for the girlies. I don't know what I'd like to see from Japan in this regard. I kind of wanna see more stories about people meeting by happenstance, not necessarily through their work, and then maybe getting together, but I'm not really certain what kind of found family, community oriented show I want, that also has a very strong romantic core to it, I think would sell.

Like, I'm trying to envision a concept that would successfully sell. The last thing I got that was really fresh that I enjoyed was Koisenu Futari, because even though, like, they're not romantically engaged with each other, it was really nice seeing two people find someone who understood them. So I'm not really certain. I kinda wanna see them tackle parenthood, but that's a whole different type of genre, separate from romance in a lot of ways. I kind of want the Japanese BL answer to The Fosters. What are them lesbians raising all them kids look like from a Japanese perspective? I think that's all I got.

NiNi

I'm surprised at you actually, Ben, because one of the things that we also talked about this year was that we finally got real friends-to-lovers this year, and I would love to see older friends-to-lovers, because there's a different dynamic there when you are past a certain age and you've had experiences in life, and you have a friend who's been by your side through that all, and then something shifts there. And that's something that we haven't seen as yet that I would really enjoy seeing.

Shan

Sign me up for that one.

NiNI

There's just something about that idea that's like starting to percolate in my brain. Because before all of that, I would have said, well, I want to see like a 40 Year Old Virgin-type story, but then we got Cherry Magic, which is basically a 40 Year Old Virgin-type story. And I couldn't think of anything really specific, but then the end of the year threw up some friends-to-lovers—some true friends-to-lovers stuff—and I started thinking about it, just like, what would that look like with older people?

Ginny

I would also love to see more of what we did get a taste of in Moonlight Chicken, of people who have had one relationship that was a fully-developed, lived-in relationship, and lost that for whatever reason, finding a second great love. One of my peeves in romance is always this idea that your first and only is the goal, and as a person in my 40s myself who did not meet my partner until I was nearly 40, would love to see more stories about people finding a great love later in their life and after one that they had and lost.

Shan

I love that. I just want more stories about older characters in general. I get so excited when we get BLs about characters that are 30 or older. Honestly, it just makes my heart sing. I'm a little burnt out on all of the school age romances, even though I do tend to love them. Still, I just want a little more variety. I want to see some adults in the genre, so I'm really hoping that we'll get more of that.

00:25:22 - Inbox: Cross-country adaptations

Shan

@sewichii writes, “I am curious to hear your thoughts on this wave of adaptations we're seeing, like Cherry Magic Thailand, Kieta Hatsukoi, Why R U? Seeing how all these rely heavily on each country's particular style, it would seem that many aspects would be lost in translation, although some could be gained. Do you see these shows as a chance to explore the same main ideas from a different angle, or as a very big chance for misunderstanding them? And do you think we're going to see more of them?”

Ben

Why R U? Korea…

[NiNi, Shan, and Ben laugh]

Shan

Maybe not the, the most generous one to start with.

NiNi

I swear, Why R U? Korea is Ben’s villain origin story on this show. [Ben and Shan laugh] It just keeps coming up all year between me and him. He wishes it’s a thing that never happened, I think. 

We were already planning to talk about this in the spring, so just a little preview for the spring. We are planning to discuss Cherry Magic Thailand, but in terms of like initial thoughts, I'm generally all for cross-cultural adaptations. I like the idea of taking the bones of a story and transferring it to a different culture, a different set of filmmaking and storytelling traditions, trying to make a base story work, because that's all stories are, like. They are only seven—what is it? Seven basic stories—there are only seven basic stories. Every story is basically an adaptation of the seven basic stories. And how you adapt that story is where the interest lies. 

So for me, like, a cross-cultural adaptation is just another version of that. What I don't like is when they make a cross-cultural adaptation that is just a straight remake of the story without injecting anything of the new creators or the new culture or the new whatever into it. That's what I don't like. Don't remake a story that somebody else has already made exactly in the way that they've made it.

Ben

I agree. Here's the thing. Like, this happens all the time. This is not just a BL phenomenon. There are a bunch of versions of Antique Bakery or Boys Over Flowers or in the European Union, SKAM, like how many fucking versions of that show exist now? Goddamn. 

There's nothing really wrong with adaptations to other cultures. I think sometimes you get good stuff, like, last year, there were two live action adaptations of Love Stage, which was a manga and then an anime, now has two live actions. People hated the Japanese live action of it, but they liked the Thai live action version of it. I think it's okay. I don't think Why R U? Korea was good, but I don't think Why R U? was good. So, I don't think that's Korea's fault. I think the story just does not work for me. As of this recording, a few episodes into Cherry Magic Thailand, I think it's a very good adaptation. I think the core dynamics that the original story is exploring are intact in the Thai version. And I'm having a really good time with it. 

We will see about Kieta Hatsukoi. I will not comment on that further at this time.

[NiNi laughs]

Ginny

He says with a knife in his hand.

Shan

[laughs] He's got two knives, I think one in each hand. [Nini laughs] I think NiNi nailed it, though, that, like, what you want to see in a good adaptation is that the new production who's making it are kind of taking the core elements of the story, but then making it their own. That is what I was really, really happy to see in Cherry Magic Thailand, that they have managed to take this very Japanese story and really adapt it to a Thai style that keeps the core themes intact, that keeps the core character dynamics intact, but that deepens them in a way that is more aligned with Thai culture. I think they've done a really good job of that so far, three episodes in, and it's made me a little more open to and excited for some of the upcoming adaptations.

NiNi

Ginny, did you have anything to say on adaptations?

Ginny

Theme and variations is the thing that I've always loved in music. I like to hear or see material that's recognizable but adapted into a different style. So philosophically, I love it and I'm excited to see it. As for the individual shows and their execution, we'll just have to see.

Ben

We had a conversation a couple of months ago with some other friends about potential adaptations from other countries and, legitimately, I still stand by this. If anyone should take a crack at an I Told Sunset About You adaptation, it should be a well-funded, experienced team from the Philippines. Because I think the way Catholicism has embedded itself into their culture is well suited to the angst between Teh and Oh-aew.

NiNi

On the lighter side, I think during that same conversation I made a joke-not-joke, that I stand by at this point, that if anybody had to do a Semantic Error remake, I would like it to be Idol Factory from Thailand. I think that they could do a lot of interesting things with it.

Ben

Those are vaguely our thoughts. We're generally [laughs] okay with adaptations. They will get shaded if they suck. They'll get praised if they're good.

00:31:21 - Inbox: Biggest wins and losses of the BL industry in 2023

Ginny

@parralex0889 writes: “2023 as a BL year was kind of a flop for me personally, with some big exceptions. With the medium ever growing and more things getting greenlit and funded, I'm not hopeless per se, but just trying to work through my frustrations with Thailand and GMTV at times. So what would y'all say are some of the biggest wins and losses of the BL industry of this year?”

Ben

Okay, this will be a fun one. We'll go around the table. Everybody pick a win. Everybody pick a loss.

NiNi

For me, the biggest winner of the year is MAME with Wedding Plan. MAME completely changed her whole shit. And maybe people didn't respond to that in the way that perhaps they could have or should have, but to me that's a big win.

Ben

And your biggest flop? 

NiNi

Oooh. Gotta be Only Friends, man. It's just gotta be.

Ben

Shan?

[Ben and Shan laugh]

Shan

Yeeeeeah. Okay, biggest win of the year…you know what? I am giving it to I Feel You Linger In The Air, because I think that that production has successfully demonstrated that there is quite an eager audience for period pieces in BL. I think that that show was wildly successful, like, it's not a perfect show, but so well received by the audience, it's been very awarded within the industry itself. And it's a beautiful show, even though there are fair critiques to be made of it. So, I'm really excited that that was so successful this year because I'm hopeful that it will mean that we're going to get a lot more historical BLs, and that is something that I personally love. 

In terms of losses, there is no bigger flop this year than Only Friends. I'm just gonna have to back NiNi up on that one.

[Ben and Shan laugh]

Ginny

Biggest win Moonlight Chicken. Loved everything about that show. It's still number one in my heart. Possibly of all time. 

Mmm, I mean, I'm with you on Only Friends. As far as, like, full catastrophic flops, I'm going to say The Promise that was…just a terrible, terrible production.

Shan

I still haven't watched that because you all hated it so much that I was like, you know what? I don't need to waste my life.

NiNi

Do not ever watch it. Do not ever watch it.

Ben

I had a whole like coming to heart with Turtles about that show. [NiNi laughs] Just because you see a sad man does not mean the show is good. [Ben laughs]

NiNi

I keep forgetting that that happened this year. I've blocked it out so thoroughly and completely. [NiNi laughs] Oh, God, that was horrible.

Ginny

It was so terrible.

NiNi

You're making a fantastic case, Ginny, I have to say.

What about you, Ben?

Ben

[sigh] I really hate that I limited myself to one.

[everyone laughs]

Shan

Live with it.

NiNi

I know what Ben’s one is going to be: winner, Japanese BL; loser: the fall of 2023 in Thailand.

[Ginny laughs]

Shan

That's a good loophole to get around the one restriction.

Ben

I think the big win for me from an industry perspective is probably La Pluie, because it seems like from everything I’ve watched from the activity around it, the show seems to have been decently received in Thailand and all of the people involved are getting, like, various deals and interactions as a result. And I think it's really important that with so much consolidation that we've been noticing in Thai BL happening that a small team funded by a tire manufacturer ended up having such a successful little show, and it was a show that was particularly enjoyable for me to react to for 12 weeks, which is not something I can say for much of this year. 

I think the biggest loser this year was…probably Thai BL pulps. Because the gap between what's really good and what is not is so much bigger now. And with the audience having so many more options, with Japan giving a shit about BL in a meaningful way, Korea producing a significant amount of more content. The bandwidth that the audience has for the sort of underfunded, and projects from newer teams. It's just so much harder for the audience to give them a pass in the way we used to. Like, we can like Make It Right because [laughs] it was made in 2016, but it wouldn't pass muster now the way it was produced then. And we're seeing a lot of that this year for Thai BL in general, that the weakest shows will never be discussed, because people aren't going to watch them, because why would they when there's so much else that's worth watching?

00:36:38 - Inbox: The next big BL trope wave

Ginny

Next question: “Seems like vampire and spooky BLs are gonna be in next year. What would you guess is the next big BL trope wave?”

NiNi

Genre, genre, genre, genre. I mean, it's already happening. Speculative fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, action. Stuff that has romance at its core but is cross-genre with something else.

Ben

Shan?

Shan

I agree with NiNi and I'm really excited about it. We've kind of reached a point of fatigue with the basic college BL. I watched a show from earlier this year this week, like on a catch up binge, and when I turned it on and realized it was a college engineering BL, I actually groaned out loud. [laughs] So, like, I feel like we're getting to the point where it's the perfect time for the genre to expand, to get into some of these other sub genres to kind of start changing up the story formulas. And I'm really excited, I’m, I'm excited to see all of it and kind of see what ends up really landing.

Ginny

I’m with you both on genre. What I'm looking forward to is seeing genre get good because especially as we delve into fantasy and sci-fi concepts, we're going to do a lot of “this is a shiny idea that we're gonna execute kind of badly from a narrative point of view,” we're certainly seeing that with The Sign, which I do love deeply, but it's a mess, story-wise. So what I'm looking forward to is seeing them play with genre a little bit and then learn how to do it better.

Ben

If you're following, like, what ends up becoming, like, weirdly popular in the West, we're probably gonna see like a pirate show if they go wow, people really liked Our Flag Means Death. ‘Cause, like, all the vampire stuff feels like a reaction to Interview With The Vampire doing really well. So I don't know. I don't know what else is super popular, that is relatively affordable to play with, that's in the consciousness right now. Like, I was not surprised to see BL going hard into horror. I actually think that the current slasher that Be On Cloud is airing right now is a good choice for them, considering how new their company is and the talent pool that they have available. Generally I'm with you guys, like, it's going to be genre blending. 

The biggest thing for me that I'm kind of concerned about seeing is the fact that Love Sick is getting a remake next year? This is probably—

Shan

Ooh, I forgot about that.

Ben

—the most worrisome sign for the genre? Because, it means we're at decline. We just finished a really good, almost BL parody this week and now we have a remake pseudo retrospective occurring, and, like, it's the same thing having superheroes. Like, the year Logan and Deadpool 2 came out, for me signaled the end of peak superheroes and declined from there. And so I'm a little bit worried about the genre, if we're at that stage already.

NiNi

Love Sick remake feels like a needle scratch, like, it feels like a complete departure from where the rest of the industry is going. So I'm not actually worried about it. It just feels like somebody with money really wants to do this nostalgia thing, but it doesn't feel like where the rest of the genre is headed? So it feels quite discordant, and I feel like the discordant feeling is why I'm not worried.

Shan

Yeah, we don't need this remake. I love Love Sick the original. I have no desire to see it remade in 2024.

00:40:30 - Inbox: Welcome back, Kotter and Go home, Roger

Ginny

Last question from parralex: “TayNew is back working, Singto, sorta, YinWar, too. Who are your Welcome back, Kotter winners of the year and who would you want to see more of? Inversely, who are your Go home, Roger recipients?”

NiNi

Alex—

Ben

NiNi?

NiNi

—know he wrong. Alex know he wrong for welcome back, Kotter and go home, Roger. I, mmm, terrible. I love it. 

Welcome Back, Kotter winner. Come on, people! Krist Perawat made a BL in 2023, and it was good. How does anybody beat that? [laughs] How?

Who would I like to see more of? Bruce. I would like to see a lot more of Bruce. It was really good to see Bruce as Chot in Step by Step this year. I really thoroughly enjoyed him, and I would like to see him a lot more. 

Go home, Roger. Ooh. [laughs] Feel like that's a little mean.

Ben

Those little dreads of his were mean.

NiNi

Who do I think is overworked and I would like them to have a nice rest? I think New Siwaj needs a vacation. I think he does. I think he just needs a little break from all of this. And maybe he can come back in 2025 after he's had that little break and we'll see what's what.

Ben

Ginny. 

Ginny

Oof. I mean, Krist is the right answer for the welcome back. Incredible comeback. 

Mmm. As much as I enjoyed My Dear Gangster Oppa for its ridiculousness, I don't know that I need to see those two boys again. They can take a rest. And, uh, to send some arrows into the GMMTV stable. I'm not into Chimon and Perth can go with him or stay. Perth is hit or miss for me. I could be done with those guys.

NiNi

I’m so sad now.

Ginny

I'm sorry, NiNi!

[NiNi laughs]

Ben

No, do not apologize to her. They owe us an apology for the last fucking year we've had.

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Shan?

Shan

So, as the resident Conversation team Babii, I am of course going to welcome back OffGun with open arms and a warm heart. Always. I'm really excited that they have a show airing now and a show coming next year. I think every time OffGun make a show, people speculate that it's probably their last BL, and every time they're like, nope! We're back, bitches! And I'm so happy. I don't think we need this construct that BL is only for 20 somethings and once actors hit 30, they have to stop making it.

Ben

BL is a young man's game. [laughs]

Shan

Right? I reject it. [NiNi laughs] I reject that, I send it back. I am so happy that some of our OGs who are in their 30s now are sticking around and continuing to make these shows, and I hope that they keep going. 

In terms of who can go home? [laughs] I agree with Ginny’s picks, and I think, like, in general, some of these branded pairs are just not working the way that they want them to be, and I would love to see a little bit of a bust up happening there, and I'm gonna just say something controversial. I want them to bust up Force and Book because, listen. What Ben said earlier about Force doing his strongest Only Friends scene work when he was not in a scene with Book, is true. He had better chemistry and more interesting dynamics with other characters in that show when he was allowed to play off of them. I want to see them mix it up. I want to see them get away from this kind of platonic friend romance dynamic that they've been doing, and I wanna see what they can do with other people.

Ben

Welcome back, Kotter has to go to Newwie for me, because you know what? I did not like that man [laughs] in the past. He was one of my least favorite GMMTV boys. Like, for Krist, we had, like, beef that may or may not have been valid with him. But like for Newwie, we didn't have, like, reasonable beef with him. I just did not like that man. But I have actually enjoyed his outings this year. I enjoyed him as Alex in The Warp Effect and I'm really enjoying him right now as Achi in Cherry Magic, so, he gets Welcome Back, Kotter.

As for go home, Roger it's going to Perth, because—like Roger—he was always at their fuckin’ house. Perth was on our screens all fuckin’ year, and it was not good. Not once. [laughs] Goddammit. Like he was bad in Never Let Me Go. He was insufferable in Double Savage. And he was annoying and kind of offensive in Dangerous Romance. I'm over him. And I never expected to say that. Go home, Roger.

Shan

It's a bad run, bad run for Perth.

NiNi

It's okay, baby. I still love you.

[everyone laughs]

Ben

Like, personally, I still like him. Like, I followed his journey. I know a lot of what he's been through. But the way they have decided to utilize him at GMMTV is truly just not working for me, and I really want them to reexamine it. Like, you had some interesting thoughts about how he's a better follow than a lead earlier, NiNi, that I think would probably help him a lot.

NiNi

[sigh] It's okay, baby. I still love you. I see your worth. [Shan laughs] I see what you're capable of. I know you can do it. You just need to pick the right projects.

Ben

She says after three of them. Goddamn.

NiNi

Hush. Shush.

Shan

More chances for Perth!

[Ginny and Shan laugh]

NiNi

We can give him chances till the end of time. Shhh it's okay. Don't listen to these people.

00:46:45 - Inbox: To all the lurkers

Shan

We have one final listener comment to share. So this is from a listener named Katherine who shared some lovely comments, some stories and compliments and ended with: “Y'all's podcast has been a wonderful companion in viewing, understanding and appreciating all these shows. I'm still too shy to move beyond lurking on Tumblr, so I wanted to offer up these thoughts to add to the conversation a bit.”

NiNi

I'm gonna say, lurkers, we love you, but we would love it more if you joined us directly in the conversation. Everybody here was a lurker at one point. We get it. Sometimes you feel like you don't have anything to say. That's not true. Sometimes you feel like other people are more interesting. That's not true. Sometimes you just don't know if you want to keep up with things like that. Fair enough. 

But what I'm saying to you is if you have something to say, say it. I encourage all lurkers to just once, just make one post in a tag and see what happens. That's all I ask.

Ben

I will echo NiNi’s sentiment. Fandom is a collaborative experience. It is not a purely consumptive one. Nothing that you enjoy in fandom is made easily. Organized posts like Shan’s posts on the La Pluie Roundup, that's a lot of effort to read a lot of stuff, organize it for people to see it as an achievement of something they wrote. Writing meta is not easy. Making gifs is not easy. All the things you enjoy in fandom spaces are offerings of love from the viewers to other fans and the creators themselves. 

Unlike other platforms like Twitter or TikTok, virality is not really something you benefit from on Tumblr, so going viral on Tumblr is mostly funny and annoying [laughs] more than it is, like, a sign of success. So, enjoy the anonymity of Tumblr and just post your silly little thoughts about shows. You'd be surprised the friends you make as a result.

Shan

Hear, hear!

NiNi

That's going to wrap up what's in our inbox for this year. We wanted to thank you guys so much for your questions and comments. We always, always, always love when our listeners interact with us and we would love y'all to do it a whole lot more in 2024. So please keep on writing us. We really appreciate it.

00:49:31 - 2023 Headlines

NiNi 

On to our year in review. What is your 2023 headline? 

My headline is gonna be: the year I watched too much BL, for me. [laughs] I watched maybe 15 to 20 productions last year? This year I watched multiples of that. [laughs] I think that I have watched maybe 60 or 70 productions this year. That is a lot. That is a big jump for me in terms of how much time I'm spending, but it's because, to me, this year sort of gave us an embarrassment of riches. There have been more good shows than I could personally keep up with. I enjoyed certain things live, certain experiences sort of along with people. And then there are certain things that I watched and binged in the dark of night and then came back to discuss them with some fully formed ideas. 

Just generally, I watched so much more this year and it might have been a little bit too much for me? So we'll see. I think going forward, for me, it's gonna be a little bit of a scale back, but we'll see what happens. 

Let's go to Shan. Shan, what's your headline for this year?

Shan

I think for me, 2023 is the year of extreme highs and extreme lows in BL. I had some of my all time favorite shows aired this year that like, really got me so excited, that I was so happy to be discussing every week that I like, actually dedicated tons of my actual real life time too, because I was just so invested in seeing them be successful and in wanting to share them with other people. And then I had some shows that made me actually angry [laughs] and like, so upset at the way that they turned out. And, you know, I think I've kind of been going back and forth on that seesaw all year. 

And you know, it makes for an interesting experience. Like, I think if you care about something, if you're emotionally invested in it, like, these are the kinds of emotions that are gonna be provoked in you, right? And I am someone who cares about the things that I choose to engage with and spend my time on. So, maybe not a surprising arc for my year, but one that ultimately I think was a very positive experience, despite some of the let downs.

Ben 

Ginny?

Ginny

I already said it. It's the year I fell in love with Japanese BL. I watched so much and I'm now fully on board for pretty much whatever Japanese productions come down the pike. I'm at least ready to give them a first look.

Ben

My headline for the year is this is the year that BL fell into the traditional TV seasonal flow. We got BL so sporadically for so long that you didn't really think about when BL was being released and how that plays out with traditional TV network schedules. And you felt it this year. BL was strongest in the winter because that's when people have time to watch TV. And that's how it is in the West, a lot, at least. And BL is weak in the summer because that's when people are doing other shit. I had to really reflect on that because I was gettin’ mad at BL in the fall. 

[Ben and Shan laugh]

But that's how it is! That's just how that time of year for shows is. And I think that's the part that surprised me the most. Like, I thought the strength of winter ‘22 into ‘23 was gonna be a sign for the full year. It was not. Because BL is getting really good again and look what time of year it is again, so. That's probably the most interesting thing for me. This year.

00:53:31 - Best Boy and Best Girl

NiNi

We want to award our Best Boy and Best Girl of the year. These awards are named after the best boys and best girls in BL of all time. So the Best Boy Award is the… 

Ben?

Ben

Oh, it goes to Namgoong from Light On Me. He is the prototypical best boy!

NiNi

So who is the Namgoong Best Boy for 2023?

Ben

This was a very difficult decision for me because we had three really strong contenders, and because Mark already got an award named after him, one of his 6000 characters this year does not get the award. 

This year's Namgoong Best Boy Award goes to Ming from I Feel You Linger in the Air.

[choral sound]

Shan

He deserves it.

Ben

Our Best Girl Award, named after the original best girl: Yihwa, from Together With Me.

NiNi

The bestest of all the good girls, she is the bestest, the goodest, the everything.

Ben

If you don't know who she is, you better ask somebody.

Shan

Isn't it wild that Yihwa and Plern Pleng exist in the [laughs] same show?

[NiNi laughs]

Ben

It's not wild. That is exactly why that happened, because they had to counterbalance each other.

Shan

They really did. They were like, “Oh, shit, we better put in a good girl because this Plern Pleng bitch.”

Ben

The absolute worst girl ever.

[Ben, NiNi, and Shan laugh]

NiNi

Ginny, have you watched Together With Me?

Ginny

No! Someday, I’m gonna watch it and then I'll know what y'all are talkin’ about.

[NiNi laughs]

Ben

You will understand the bloodlust that comes out of all of us whenever her name comes up.

Ginny

It's incredible. Every time she's mentioned—the knives—everybody's hands spring knives [NiNi laughs] from every finger.

Ben

What gets Ginny about it is it's different kinds of people—like, Plern Pleng gets mentioned and, like, the nicest people in Tumblr are like, “I'll kill her as soon as I see her!” [laughs]

Ginny

Literally everyone. [NiNi laughs] There's no—there's no defenders. There's no “oh,no, no.” It's every single person. It’s very funny.

Ben

The Yihwa Best Girl award for 2023 goes to Ae Ri from The Eighth Sense!

[choral sound]

NiNi

Well deserved. Well deserved.

Ginny

Very.

Ben

Quick shout out for my man, Joon Pyo. You were in strong contention.

Shan

The Eighth Sense also had a good dichotomy there with, like, some of the best friends and some of the worst friends you've ever seen depicted. [laughs]

Ben

Exactly. It's—it's the balance. [laughs]

Shan

Yeah.

NiNi

So these are not plates, but there's some kind of award involved here.

Ben

We're sending them mugs. Best Boy. Best Girl. [laughs]

NiNi

Yes, mugs! I like that. I like that.

00:56:17 - 2024 QL Resolutions

NiNi

I am going to start with Ben on this one because you need to make a resolution. [laughs]

Ben

I won't.

NiNi

What are your 2024 New Year's QL resolutions?

Ben

I will watch a hundred shows next year. 

[everyone laughs] 

Shan

But you did that this year!

Ben

No more lying to myself or y’all. I will never scale back. I will only get stronger. [everyone laughs] This year, I think, I only finished like 75 shows. Let's just go all the way: We'll finish a hundred next year! 

A sincere resolution? I don't know. I think my biggest resolution is probably to just back off shows when I'm getting aggravated with them a lot sooner than I did, ‘cause I pissed myself off way too much trying to see Dangerous Romance to the end just to be mad at it. I'm not doing that again.

NiNi

Ginny, what about you? What is your QL resolution?

Ginny

Well, I have a couple of specific shows that I have pledged to watch that I've been promising friends for years or months that I would watch. But overall, I think it's to post more, and post more consistently on Tumblr. Sometimes I got really into it and sometimes I would kind of go months without writing, and I would like to be more consistent about sharing thoughts, even if I don't have an entire essay's worth, ‘cause I do enjoy being part of that conversation.

NiNi

Shan?

Shan

I think I'm making a resolution similar to Ben’s around just kind of like, reclaiming my time. There are so, so many shows now, and nobody can watch them all. And I am trying to be more willing to just call it when a show is not working for me? And you know, because I do post so much on Tumblr and I'm pretty consistent about it, like at a certain point, if I'm just not enjoying a show and I'm getting nothing out of it, I don't want to be the person posting every week to be like “your show sucks!” Like, [laughs] nobody needs that. Nobody wants it. 

So, I think I just wanna be more aware of when I'm really getting no joy out of a show, and then just cutting it off and not feeling bad about Do-Not-Finishing it. I'm gonna do that more this year.

NiNi

Let's see, what is my QL resolution? I'm gonna stop picking on New Siwaj. [laughs]

Ginny

What?

Shan

I vow to never watch another New Siwaj show! [laughs]

Ginny

This is like Ben saying he's gonna quit New Siwaj.

Shan

Yeah, it's never gonna happen.

NiNi

No, ‘cause I feel like at this point I'm gonna put him on my 'sick and shut in' list. I have said all the things, and there isn't anything new to say, so at this point I don't think it's even entertaining anymore. [laughs] I just feel like I want to give New Siwaj a break.

Ben

Hm! I won't. I'll be watching that show.

[Ben, Ginny, and Shan laugh]

NiNi

That's not what I mean—like, low-key, I'm gonna watch it. I'm gonna watch that silly too-many-couples college BL that he's doing with Pond and Phuwin and all the rest of ‘em. I am going to watch it, but I am not going to pick on him about it.

Ben

Okay, good, because a lot of our faves had a pretty rough year. Let's be real. [laughs]

NiNi

Listen, that's probably one of the stories of this year as well. Like everybody is just batting average low. Our faves, our directors? They weren't doing so hot this year. Like, people did anything between two and four shows this year, and got everything between zero and one hits.

Shan

They're doing too much. That's the problem. Like, you've got Tee Bundit out here, making like what, three shows simultaneously, literally, like—

NiNi

Tee made four shows this year.

Shan

Simultaneously! Of course they're not gonna be good, most of them. Your focus is far too split. In some ways, the high output in Thai BL is a blessing, and in some ways it's really a curse for these individual productions because they're just not getting the care that they need.

Ben

I need Thai BL to make their resolution to be the year of the editor.

Shan

Haha! Please! Please hire an editor, for the love of God!

NiNi

Just a storyboard. Start with a storyboard. I promise you, you will enjoy what happens if you start with a storyboard.

Ben

Like we've been having this conversation a lot lately, but, episodic television has to have really good starting and end points to keep the audience going from week to week. If you're gonna be telling a 12-part story, the 12 parts have to have a really good internal arc that connects to each other.

Shan

This reminds me of one of my favorite moments of just collective catharsis on Tumblr this year, which was, right after Step by Step finished airing, Dee Hup House put out an advertisement for an editor. [everyone laughs] And everybody lost their shit because they were like, “Yes!” 

Ben

Holy shit. That was so funny, but also, like, weirdly embarrassing [laughs] at the same time for everyone involved.

01:01:43 - The BGP!

NiNi 

Before we move on to 2024, let's take one last look back at 2023 with a term that came up towards the end of the year that we have been thoroughly enjoying amongst ourselves. 

What was your favorite Business Gay Performance of the year? [laughs]

Ben

Ooh, BGP!

Shan and Ginny

[in unison] BGP!

NiNi

Who really put their foot in it? Who was your favorite Business Gay Performance of the year? 

Should we explain what BGP is? [laughs]

Shan 

I guess we should. Nobody has watched Bump Up Business except me and Ben. 

[everyone laughs]

So, this term ‘Business Gay Performance,’ or as we like to abbreviate it, ‘BGP,’ comes from a Korean BL called Bump Up Business—which actually was BGP in and of itself [laughs] because it was a BL based on idols. They decided to come up with what they call a Business Gay Performance plan to increase their reach, get more attention on them. The characters in the show were played by real life idols from the K-pop band OnlyOneOf, which are also very prolific in their real life BGP—it was meta on meta on meta, this show. 

In any case, what it refers to is an intentional performance of romance between two people of the same sex in order to sell whatever it is that they're doing—a Business Gay Performance. And we just found this term so fucking useful [laughs] for discussions of the BL industry and the branded pairs that tend to spring up, particularly in Thai BL. And so we will be using it going forward. Business Gay Performance, BGP. 

Ben 

Has our Business Gay Performance plan ended before it began?

[Shan and Ben laugh]

Shan 

You really should watch Bump Up Business! I'm just gonna make a plug for it. It is so fucking funny for anyone who's familiar with BL. [laughs]

Ben 

Legit. Shan and I are sending each other stupid texts in the middle of the day reacting to the show, because literally every line was delivered so earnestly and was absolutely insane. Incredible nonsense. Not a good show! You should watch it anyway. 

[laughs]

Okay, favorite BGP of the year. Ginny, do you have one that comes to mind right away? I know you do.

Ginny 

I do! I'm giving it not to a couple, but to a person, and that is Joong Archen. I don't know if y'all know, he and Dunk do lots and lots of great BGP, but he is up in everybody's replies on Twitter and Instagram—all the other GMMTV boys—talking about how hot they are, flirting casually. It's incredible work. I love to see it. 

Ben 

Joong admits that he reads fic. 

Ginny 

God, I forgot about that. 

[NiNi laughs]

Ben 

He said he reads JoongDunk fic, and he has favorites. 

NiNi 

Oh God. [unintelligible noises]

Ginny 

Every time I hear that, I need to immediately forget it. I can't have that as part of my reality. [Ben and NiNi laugh] He can do what he wants, but I need to not know that. [Shan and NiNi laugh]

Shan 

My God. 

Ben 

I'm with you. Joong is an excellent choice for BGP because that man understands the work. 

Shan, do you have a selection for favorite BGP of the year?

Shan 

I would like to shout out Daou and Offroad from Love in Translation. They have, like, a long-established friendship. They have a clear foundational relationship to base their publicity work off of, and they're, like, tasteful about their BGP. They're not out here trying to do sly jokes, trying to imply that they’re really fucking in real life or anything like that. They're just out there kind of living their lives as friends in the public sphere, posting stuff frequently enough to keep the fans happy, but never taking it too far. And for me, that's what I love to see in BGP. I love to see a bond between colleagues that clearly have a friendship and that are keeping it on the right side of the line in terms of not encouraging delulu fans to take things over the line, and I think that they've found a really good balance with that, and I'm really excited to see if they do another project. 

Ben 

I did enjoy very recently Daou had a live he did, I believe on Twitch, where he chided fans very directly for harassing one of his female friends—’cause he went out with some friends.

Shan

Mmhmm. 

Ben

And people found her socials and harassed her because he was hanging out with her instead Offroad. And he was like, “Y'all need to cut this stuff out or we will stop working.”

Shan 

Yeah, I love that. They hold their boundaries. They're very good at their jobs. They're very professional. They are willing to share some of their friendship with fans, but they're gonna hold their boundaries, and I respect it. I like the way that they're doin’ it. 

Ben 

Oh, it's Yin and War. 

Shan

Ohh… 

Ben

There's a lot of BGP I loved this year, girls, and boys, and other friends, but let me tell you, hiring Jojo to make a movie trailer for a concert, and I'm still thinking about the movie that doesn't exist. [Shan laughs] Also, we learned that these two boys have personalized microphones that are color-coded—insane, next-level BGP. I'm so fond of the two of them. I think they also have a really good handle on BGP, and are very good about their fan boundaries, too. 

So that's my favorite of the year, but since we are talking about BGP, I do think that I want to shout out TayNew and OffGun while we're here because—

Shan 

Mmm! The OGs! 

Ginny 

They’re so good. 

Ben 

Parralex0889 sent us some questions earlier and has been to quite a few fan events, and I've gotten to get some of his reactions to meeting them personally over a couple of different fan events. And the maturity of their BGP and the way they engage with fans has been really impressive. Particularly, having watched these guys figure it out in real time in front of fans, and they have not always had the best experience with fans respecting their boundaries, or maybe giving way too much BGP and it blowing up in their faces. I really want to applaud the way that they have matured into it and really set a good example for a lot of people coming behind them to follow. I think TayNew and OffGun deserve shout outs for pioneering effective BGP. 

NiNi 

Well, I actually have a winner and a runner-up. 

Ben 

Okay, go for it. [laughs]

NiNi 

The runner up is actually gonna be Louis Chiang and Nat Chen from Kiseki: Dear to Me. I have enjoyed what I have seen of their BGP. They are doing it in the way that only the Taiwanese boys have ever done BGP. It's a very different style of BGP than the Thai style, and I think that they do it incredibly effectively. I get a kick out of it. I have fun, and I think that they're being in their own way, quite real with the fans, because they talk about the experience of acting, and they're quite open about the way that certain things happen, and the way that you have to delve into character in a certain way and what that means. It could skirt up to the line of becoming a little too much, which has happened in Taiwan before. But they seem to be in a comfortable and safe space with it, so I quite enjoy their BGP. 

But in terms of a winner, the absolute most-unhinged, cracked-out BGP of 2023, and I have been thoroughly enjoying what I have seen of it, has been the Playboyy cast. Unhinged, cracked-out, over the top. Nobody could possibly buy this is real. Absolutely not. And they are having, clearly, so much fun with it. They are [laughs] young and hot and enjoying being young and hot everywhere. And I personally love it. I love it. 

Shan 

I feel like in that category we should give a shout out to Billy and Babe from The Sign, and that TikTok video they made last week of the dance.

NiNi 

[laughs] Oh ho ho. They are doing some really good BGP. 

Ginny 

Thank you. I was hoping—

Shan 

Someone needs to say it! We cannot let it go unacknowledged. [laughs]

Ginny

Yep!

Ben 

There's so much BGP that's actually really good, though. That’s the thing. 

[everyone laughs]

NiNi 

I am thoroughly enjoying Billy and Babe’s BGP. It's gonna go into next year and I'm very excited about that. 

Ben 

Babe is my new bias, so we can talk about Babe longer if you want. 

[NiNi laughs]

Ginny 

I'll talk about Babe with you all day. 

[Ginny and Ben laugh]

Ben 

That boy is so beautiful. It's so ridiculous. Babe is super beautiful, and then he'll move and you'll be like, “Ah!”

[Ben and Ginny laugh]

Incredible.

NiNi 

“Oops, it's like I forgot you were real for a second.”

01:11:05 - The Year Ahead (GIVE US LESBIANS!)

NiNi 

Let's move very quickly into 2024. Let's do, like, a quick hit. So, each of you, one thing you're watching now and one thing that has piqued your interest for 2024. 

Shan 

I'm only allowed to talk about one thing I'm watching now? All right, I'm gonna cheat, and I'm gonna talk about the 1-2-3 punch of my weekends right now where I get to watch Last Twilight, and Cherry Magic Thailand, and Cooking Crush, ‘cause that's just really been a fuckin’ delight for me. And I'm just so excited to get to end the year this way. Really excited to see how those shows go. I hope they hold up. 

Things that have piqued my interest for next year. I am so ridiculously excited for Wandee Goodday. If that show is not good, I'm gonna fuckin’ cry. I am not even kidding. [NiNi laughs] I love Thor. 

Ben

There it is. [laughs]

Shan

He is my bias and I am so excited to see a fighter BL! I wanna see this Muay Thai. I wanna see these big masculine dudes fucking fighting each other. I wanna see Thor with his shirt off every single episode lookin’ hot. I cannot wait and if it's bad, I'm going to be so sad. 

Please do not let me down, Wandee Goodday. Please.

NiNi 

I'm right there with you. 

Ginny

Yep.

NiNi

Ginny?

Ginny 

Ooh, let's see. Currently watching, I mentioned it, I am loving The Sign. It is a hot mess of execution in terms of plot structure, but Billy and Babe are delivering the chemistry all the time. I've been a big fan of Billy since Secret Crush on You. I am perfectly happy to sit in the madness of sometimes we're doing a cop show, and sometimes we're doing a fantasy, and sometimes we're trying to mix them in ways that don't work, but it's always really pretty and intense and I like it. So I'm enjoying that and I'm strapped in for the ride. Wherever it takes us over the next several weeks. 

Looking forward to next year, it's got to be Spare Me Your Mercy with Tor and Jaylerr, who have not yet done BL, doing a Sammon story. I loved Tor so much in Midnight Museum and cannot wait to see him do a full BL. Sammon always does great plots. The romance and the chemistry is hit or miss, but I'm very excited for this project. 

Ben 

Having been made to watch Great Men Academy, Jaylerr can do BL. I'm ready for it. I'm ready to receive it. 

Shan 

I forgot about that show, Ginny, thank you for reminding me. That's a good one. 

Ginny 

I'm never not thinking about it. 

[Ben, Ginny, and Shan laugh]

Ben 

Okay! NiNi? 

NiNi 

Something I'm watching now. I'm also watching and enjoying The Sign, but I'm gonna have to do a plug for the Last Twilight. It is intense emotionally, and that's where I like to sit, particularly at the end of the year. So I am having a great time. I did not think I would be having a great time. I was very nervous going into the show because of Jimmy. I didn't know that Jimmy was gonna have the chops to carry the storyline that he has to carry in the show as Mhok. But so far I am feeling good about it. I am enjoying watching the story unfold. Mark Pakin is there. That's always a win. And Namtan is crushing it and crushing Ginny's heart every week. And– [NiNi laughs]

Ginny

She’s so beautiful! 

NiNi

It's such a beautiful piece of work, like you have come to expect from Aof. And that's one thing that I'm watching now. 

2024, there's so much I'm actually looking forward to. I'm gonna pick two things. I'm sorry. I can't choose between these two. The first one is Peaceful Property for Sale. I don't know if that's gonna be a BL or not, but it's Tay, it's New, it's Jan, and it's Mook, and I am looking forward to it like you would not believe. It's like a ghost hunter story. I'm obsessed. 

Shan 

It looks like goofy, spooky fun.

Ginny

Yeah.

NiNi 

It looks fantastic. I am so ready to watch it. Looking forward to that. And then the other thing that I'm looking forward to is Hwang Da-Seul is coming back! Hwang Da-Seul is coming back with Uncovering the Curse of Taekwondo. I know nothing about it, but I will be seated. 

Ben, how about you? 

Ben 

Right now I'm watching Goblin. Is that a BL?

Shan 

Hell yeah!

NiNi 

Finally! Gong Yoo and Lee Dong Wook will not say that it's not a BL if you ask them about it. 

Shan 

It changed the culture forever. [NiNi laughs]

Ben 

I will say that it is very good, but I will not forgive Shan for making me watch this tragic ass show. 

On the BL front, we finished I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama last night and unfortunately for NiNi, the fight over the VIIB Awards for 2024 has already begun. 

[everyone laughs]

Shan 

Ben has already crowned his 2024 best show. Good luck to everyone else. 

Ben 

Let me tell you, that show in three 40ish minute episodes was one of the cleanest, best paced and well executed projects I have ever seen from this genre. I need the rest of you to take notes and have a sip babies, because goddamn. That show was almost perfect. And holy shit am I going to be so annoying for the next couple of months. As a bunch of these shows stumbled their way through their back half, it was excellent. 

It's a show within a show within a show sort of situation. ‘Cause you've got the two leads, are an actor and an idol who are going to be working together on a BL drama, and there's a BL happening between them too. It's excellent. I love watching actors play actors, and it was really cool seeing a good actor play a good actor with problems. It's so fucking good. 

This was such an excellent year to be a Japanese BL fan. 

Shan

Word.

Ben

[laughs] Holy shit. I had to give for so long. 

Shan 

And now you get to receive, bestie. [laughs]

Ben 

If you have not yet subscribed to Gaga, go subscribe to Gaga. Because they are by gays and for gays. And if you sign up, tell them that their insane social media manager [laughs] on Twitter is the reason you signed up. Because I'm still thinking about 'Tell the World the Bitch is Back' when Park Seo Ham was [laughs] released from military service. 

Shan 

That person deserves a raise, a promotion. [laughs] Ohh, they're so good at their job. 

Ginny 

Incredible work. 

Ben 

What am I looking forward to in the future? I am always the worst person to answer. With us because there is so much shit happening in front of us right now, I can't look over the fucking horizon because a bunch of the shit that I wanna watch never gets made. There's a project coming up with MBS, that I believe is a friends to lovers story, that I am genuinely excited about because I think it is about adults who live near each other. I think the concept when they described it was similar to VIP Only, and I'm hoping that Japan does a better job with that because VIP Only is not doing a great job. 

I'm actually genuinely looking forward to the MAME Fort and Peat show where Peat is a writer dealing with writer’s block and then he goes to like a beach resort, meets Fort’s character and, like, fucks out his writer’s block. That sounds right up her alley. 

Shan 

Ben, are you saying you're not looking forward to the BossNoeul show coming next year? 

[NiNi laughs]

Ben 

Is that the weird daddy play one? Is that the one that we got because Noeul was unhinged in that fucking special? Yeah, no, I'm not interested in that one. When that show is weird and uncomfortable, remember that you all snubbed Wedding Plan and I want to hear fuck all from any of you. [NiNi laughs]

Also, I'm really looking forward to She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat coming back. What Did You Eat Yesterday? has finished and will likely go on at least a two- to three-year hiatus, and I'm really excited that we're gonna get a good solid twenty 15-minute episodes out of She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat. I feel like we left them kind of in a weird spot and I'd like to feel complete this time [laughs] when we finish with them. 

NiNi 

Definitely concur about She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat. Overall, I think the headline story on this year has been: not enough lesbians. 

Ben 

Yeah, I'm not shouting out the show that didn't show up because, huh. We can talk about it when it arrives. 

NiNi 

[laughs] I agree, but just generally if you like, there was GL this year, but there wasn't very much of it and what there was didn't do much.

Ginny 

It's comin’.

Ben

I'm a little bit concerned, because I feel like last year we had a really good outing from Korean lesbian teams and I feel like they all went kind of quiet this year. I'm a little worried about them. 

Ginny 

Well, the Thai teams have only just started picking it up and we know that Korea likes to look at Thailand being successful and go, oh shit, time to get back in the game. [NiNi laughs] So that's what I'm hoping for. 

NiNi 

I'm hoping for something good. We've got a couple of things coming early in the year, apparently Reverse For You is finally coming out. So we'll see how that goes. We've got the show, which shall not be named because we don't know what version of Fon Kanittha is going to show up yet, so we're not saying the thing until it arrives, as Ben says. 

Shan 

We dare not speak its name. 

NiNi 

We dare not speak its name, but just know that we'll be looking forward to it. 

Ginny 

Namtan and Film! 

NiNi 

Namtan and film, Pluto. That's coming out. 

Ben 

I won't acknowledge it because we're still waiting on the last one. MmMmm. We will talk about it when it arrives. 

Shan 

We did also just get news of a new historical GL that is apparently in the works, starring the actress who played Maey in I Feel You Linger. 

Ginny

Yes. 

NiNi 

That must be brand new information ‘cause I hadn't seen that one. 

Shan 

It's brand new information. It's called The Hidden Moon, and we've only seen a promotional image, but I was very excited by the promotional image. [laughs]

Ginny

Yep. 

Ben 

Wait, isn't The Hidden Moon the BL vampire project? 

Shan 

Wait, are they in the vampire BL?! 

Ben 

Now we have to go do some research. Pause. [Shan laughs]

NiNi 

Because of the clip show y'all now know that we pause and do research. [laughs]

Shan 

Yeah. This isn't giving vampire BL vibes, at all. I think it's a separate show with the same name, but I would like to see a vampire BL that also has a GL pairing. 

Ben 

There is a BL coming up called The Hidden Moon which is a vampire project by all reports. 

Ginny 

The promo poster font matches what's on MDL as potentially the vampire one you're talking about [Shan gasps], so I don't know. It might be both. 

Shan 

It’s a historical vampire BL with a GL side pairing?! What's going on?

Ben

Jesus fucking Christ. [Ginny laughs]

NiNi 

It’s written by the same original author from I Feel You Linger In The Air. 

Ginny 

Violet Rain. Yes. Okay. 

Shan 

See, that's what I thought, it looks like it's speaking to I Feel You Linger. Fascinating. Well, I guess we'll learn more. 

Ben 

I'm not complaining, but also oh my God. 

[everyone laughs]

NiNi 

So yeah, that's the lesbians we've heard about coming up, looking forward to some of that stuff and more besides, because there has been a drought, people, there has been a drought. 

Ginny 

Can we call it a drought when we've never eaten before? 

NiNi 

We had more before, we did. I feel like this year there wasn't anything. 

Ginny 

There's lesbian SOTUS, which is charmingly bad. Like, it's just, everybody's trying so hard. They're doing their best. They're all brand new babies. 

Ben 

I love that you call it lesbian SOTUS every time. 

Ginny 

It is. Watch it. It's lesbian SOTUS. 

NiNi 

There was that Filipino one that nobody could watch because it was geolocked. 

Shan 

Oh, that was so sad. 

Ben 

There are [intense whisper] goddamn volleyball lesbians that I can’t watch.

Shan 

Pinoy volleyball lesbians, and they won't let us have it. 

Ben 

I am shaking with rage. [Ben and NiNi laugh]

Shan

Fucking rude!

Ben 

I was literally watching volleyball yesterday! 

Shan 

I feel like you're usually watching volleyball. 

Ben

Oh my God.

Shan

Like, where are you finding all this volleyball to watch? 

Ben 

YouTube! [laughs] They upload it all to YouTube. 

NiNi 

I think it's just rude that I do not have a sports GL in front of me. 

Ginny 

That is rude. 

NiNi 

I just think that that's disrespectful. 

Shan 

You're right and you should say it. 

NiNi

I watched 2521 and I was upset by the fact that that was not a GL. So the fact that that exists and is not a GL and nobody has taken up that mantle—

Shan

Infuriating.

NiNi

—it is upsetting, it's disrespectful. 

Ben 

See Shan, you're jokin’. Fucking Turkey and Serbia are playing right now! 

NiNi 

Oh my God. Okay, we're wrapping this up. 

[everyone laughs]

01:24:58 - Outro

NiNi

So that is going to wrap us up on season five. Oh my gosh! Five seasons. A whole year of The Conversation. 

Shan

Yay!

NiNi

Oh my God. It's been a journey.

Ben

How many episodes did we do?

NiNi

This episode, I believe, is episode—let me actually go to the spreadsheet that you shaded—episode 38.

Ben

Oh my God. That’s so much.

NiNi

I know, it's a lot. 

[Ben and NiNI laugh]

Ben

We have really enjoyed the amount of time we spent together, with our other friends who hung out with us on the show. I'm so glad that Ginny and Shan joined the team, because we did need help. [laughs] It's been fun, and I'm really glad that people seem to respond to what we're doing here. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you all for the encouragement because it does help.

NiNi

It really does help when I am up at night editing desperately trying to make deadline. [laughs] It does help to know that y'all really wanna listen to us. 

So thank you all so much for the conversation. For sticking with us for a year. And here's to seeing you next year. 

And with that, we out, say “bye” to the people, everybody. 

Shan and Ginny

[in unison] Bye people.

Ben

Peace!

#lgbtq #podcast #thai bl #japanese bl #korean bl #taiwanese bl #filipino bl #bl series #the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #winter series #season 5

[the-conversation-pod]

The VIIB Awards 2024: Special Class

Finishing with Part 5 of 5 of the Very Important Internet BL Awards, we are handing out our awards for our special class dramas!

We will be awarding Honorable Mentions to shows that did something specifically notable, and we will be awarding awards for Best After School Special, Best Family Drama, and Best Slice-of-Life Drama.

Thank you for spending the last week with us! Please tag us with your own awards!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:23 - Introduction 03:03 - Interlude: The Beach - Moonlight (2016) 04:18 - Honorable Mention: The Day I Loved You 10:26 - Honorable Mention: Chen Yi and Ai Di 15:44 - Honorable Mention: Sasake and Miyano: Graduation 21:41 - Sixth Man: Mark Pakin Kuna-anuvit 31:33 - Standout Queer Narrative: Moonlight Chicken 38:02 - Standout Queer Narrative: The Warp Effect 41:30 - Standout Queer Narrative: What Did You Eat Yesterday? 2 46:54 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

[fanfare sound]

01:23 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back. We have reviewed all of the shows under the more traditional frameworks. We've gone over which talents we were really fond of, which pairings we're really fond of, who we thought did a great job assembling a show, and what were the bangers of the year.

It's time to award the shows so good that they would have skewed the results, or in our estimation, are not primarily driven by romance in a way that makes them fit under the traditional BL criteria.

NiNi

Here in our Special Class Awards, we have three award categories, and each award category can have multiple awardees, which is why it's special. [laughs] 

So our three categories are Honorable Mentions, the Sixth Man Award, and our Standout Queer Narratives Award. In Honorable Mentions, we're going to be acknowledging key contributions to the genre from various filming markets and traditions that are perhaps outside of the main and the ones that we discuss. In the Sixth Man Award, we want to acknowledge the most valuable and versatile supporting actor of the year. And under Standout Queer Narratives, we want to acknowledge queer works that are not primarily romances.

03:03 Interlude: The Beach - Moonlight (2016)

Kevin 

“That breeze feel good as hell man.”

Chiron

“Yeah it do.”

Kevin

“Sometimes round the way, where we live, you can catch this same breeze. It come through the hood and it’s like everything stop for a second ‘cause everyone just wanna feel it. Everything just get quiet, you know?”

Chiron

“And it’s like all you can hear is your own heartbeat, right?”

Kevin

“Yeah…feel so good, man. “

Chiron

“So good…. “

Kevin

“Hell, shit make you want to cry, it feel so good.”

Chiron

“You cry?”

Kevin

“Nah. But it makes me want to… What you cry about?” 

Chiron

“Shit, I cry so much sometimes I feel like I'ma just turn to drops.”

04:18 Honorable Mention: The Day I Loved You

NiNi

So let's start with our Honorable Mentions. And this year we have three. I'll let Ben take you through them.

Ben

The first one I want to acknowledge this year is a show from the Philippines called The Day I Loved You. [Applause sound] I don't think I ever actually managed to write about this show because you're reacting to a show that is fundamentally tragic. I remember watching it with Kyra, and we called it, like, the Nicholas Sparks BL of the year. 

In this show, we have a femme boy who's kind of bullied at school but doesn't seem to care about it. He ends up developing a thing with the new hot guy at the school who's here from Singapore, and there's, like, a love triangle with his best friend. And we realize that the reason why he's been holding back romantically in this story is because he has a debilitating condition that is gonna involve him declining and losing control of his limbs and other mobility along the way. So he's leery of beginning something with someone. 

The way this plays out is really beautiful. There's a richness to the way a lot of the Filipino storytelling is done that I really connect to all the time. Even when I'm not watching BL, I really like Filipino cinema when I have the opportunity to really engage with some of their work. And even though BL in the Philippines has been really struggling with the lack of investment right now. 

This show is really well produced—it's available on YouTube—and takes the dynamics here very seriously. The best friend is not going to be the one who's chosen because he doesn't want his best friend, who he knows loves him, to also go through the ugliness of his decline. His suitor in this eventually pushes past some of these barriers, but the show never downplays the seriousness of Eli's condition. His condition worsens. It is not a pretty experience. But there is this beautiful amount of heart in it. 

This show is the one that has stuck with me quietly all year long. I think about the show at least once a month or so, and have been trying to find a way to properly write about it. In a year where we didn't really have a lot to point to from the Philippines that we really thought a lot of folks should rally behind, this is one of the standouts that I think you all should go back and watch if you can handle a tragic romance, not unlike the experience you might have with a Nicholas Sparks movie or book.

NiNi

So, I have not seen The Day I Loved You because I feel like I am not emotionally capable of watching that right now. It's the same reason I haven't caught up on Eternal Yesterday. There are some things that I'm holding in reserve because I don't think that I have the emotional bandwidth or capacity to handle right now. But I was sort of following along while you and Kyra were doing your watch, and I am looking forward to getting around to it when I have the emotional wherewithal to stand up to the tragedy, because I do sometimes enjoy—I guess ‘enjoy’ is a strange word—but enjoy a good tragic romance. 

I tend to enjoy work from the Philippines, especially when the production quality lines up with the ideas they're trying to espouse. And so, given everything that you've said about it to me up until now, it's on my list. I just don't know when I'm going to get to it.

Ben

I think the production quality is about where The Boy Foretold by the Stars is. It's slightly under Gameboys.

NiNi

I think that's a good spot to land.

Ben

The music's good, like the song that they selected for the intro is a banger. It's called Sweet + Wild by YANCO—such an excellent song.

NiNi

I love Filipino music, as you are well aware, so really looking forward to that.

Ben

It's a really excellently put together little production. There's a lot of heart in the story and it takes its characters and its conceits really seriously, in a way that I found really compelling. And I continue to be really impressed with the way the Philippines explores Catholicism and Christianity inside of BL. It's one of the unique things that the Philippines can do, and I like that they do it well consistently.

NiNi

It's one of the things that draws me to them as well, being a lapsed Catholic myself. Lapsed? Former? What's the terminology these days? Having grown up Catholic, it's one of the things that does draw me to the Philippines, and I feel like I understand a lot of what they are getting into in their narratives and in their characters because of that.

Ben

The Day I Loved You from Regal Entertainment, directed by Easy Ferrer, starring Tommy Alejandrino as Nico, Raynald Tan as Eli, and Rabin Josh as Justine.

10:26 Honorable Mention: Chen Yi and Ai Di

NiNi 

Our next Honorable Mention award is not for a show. It is for a couple coming out of Taiwan from the show Kiseki: Dear To Me, Chen Yi and Ai Di. [Applause sound] It has been a long time, for me anyway, since a side couple completely took over the show from the main couple to the point that I'm kind of only slightly sure what happened to the [laughs] main couple on Kiseki? But I know for sure what happened to Chen Yi and Ai Di. [laughs]

Kiseki was a mixed bag. It was a strange year from Taiwan. Nothing really landed. They did quite a bit that I ended up, in the end, not watching. I think Ben, you watched most of it?

Ben

Unfortunately.

NiNi

It was a very strange year. The only thing that drew me in was Kiseki and then, it was a strange show. I didn't expect something like that from Lin Pei Yu. But the light in the tunnel was definitely Chen Yi and Ai Di, played by Nat Chen and Louis Chiang. 

They play orphans who basically grew up inside the mafia. Chen Yi thinks he's in love with the mafia boss, while Ai Di is in love with Chen Yi. Hijinks ensue. Let's just put it that way. Hijinks ensue. And then Ai Di goes to jail for four years, but before he goes to jail, he and Chen Yi have sex while Chen Yi is, shall we say, altered? And then Ai Di goes to jail and Chen Yi is left with his feelings trying to sort of understand how he feels and where he stands with Ai Di. Then when Ai Di gets out of jail, he's pissed, and trying to keep his distance from Chen Yi. But Chen Yi has now realized how in love he is, and he's not gonna let that stand. 

It is one of the crackheads ships I've ever seen. But also kind of delightful in a way? [laughs] But the important thing is that they really took over the show. I don't mean that in a critical way. I mean that of all the things that were happening on Kiseki, they were easily the most interesting. 

Ben 

So it was a weird year for Taiwan and part of why I wanted to talk about these two is because there's just been less activity from Taiwan and the BL front. Some of that has to do with a lot of complicating factors [laughs] we won't get into on this podcast. But in all the things released—quick aside, there is an interesting project happening right now in Taiwan in that the Friday Taiwanese BLs are being produced by a single company doing a dedicated for BL project. I don't think it's been that great personally, but it's rare that we get dedicated BL commitment in a time slot, and while I don't think the projects have been really strong, the things that Taiwan is good at remain. Like, the overall cast chemistry from Taiwan still remains the best. They are very good at getting the whole cast to believably play off of each other, even in characters who only interact once or twice in the whole show. It is always impressive and especially with the romantic and sexual chemistry. I enjoy the paired chemistry of actors from Taiwan, more [than] the other BL producing countries more often than not. 

In this particular show, I think both couples had really strong performances as couples with each other. And we ended up focusing on Ai Di and Chen Yi a lot because they're the mafia boys and Louis Chiang's character wears a choker the whole time, and is always trying to murder someone, and he's shorter than everyone, and everyone loves that! Every time I see this boy getting a little bit mad, I'm like, yes! Kill them! 

But they were really good. And it was funny, like, the show shifts towards the back half where we spend a great deal of time focusing on them, and they get the final shot of the show. It's so weird! This side couple legitimately won. I'm just amazed by that choice. 

NiNi 

A choice it definitely was. With all that said, Honorable Mention award to Chen Yi and Ai Di from Kiseki: Dear to Me from Taiwan, played by Nat Chen and Louis Chiang. 

15:44 Honorable Mention: Sasake and Miyano: Graduation

NiNi 

The third and final Honorable Mention award this year goes to an anime project. Sasaki and Miyano: Graduation. [applause sound] 

Ben, lead the way. 

Ben 

Okay! Let's talk about anime. So, yaoi is old, a lot older than people realize. We have art made by, we suspect to be women, going as far back as the 1400s, of guys sucking each others dicks. This is not a new phenomenon. At all.

And so, when we're talking about, like, what is BL doing, what is BL, where is BL going? A big question is always what is happening on the written front? What novels are popular in various cultures, and in, for Japan in particular, it's going to be manga. A significant amount of content is adapted directly from manga because manga is already successful, it has a built in fan base, and the manga itself serves as a storyboard and it's very easy to win fans over by taking popular panels and recreating them on screen for maximum impact. What's also notable is, when something is doing really well, it's going to get an anime adaptation. Anime is far more expensive to produce than live action content. 

So, Sasaki and Miyano is a story about these guys in high school. One is a little bit older and is going to be graduating soon. His name is Sasaki and he helps Miyano in an instant where these guys are bullying one of Miyano’s friends, and Miyano wants to jump in. Sasaki sees that Miyano wants to help, and he jumps in to help, kind of gets his ass whipped anyway, but the two of them start hanging out. 

Sasaki learns pretty early on that Miyano is a fudanshi—this is the boy version of a fujoshi—he reads BL all the time. He is one of us. But he doesn't think of himself as queer at the beginning of this. Sasaki ends up becoming very fond of Miyano, starts reading BL because it's very important to Miyano, and a relationship blossoms between them. Where this particular show is fascinating for me is because Miyano is a fudanshi, and Sasaki is not. And this is evinced most notably in the movie that released this year: Graduation, where Miyano’s understanding of what m/m romance is supposed to look like is influenced by BL, and we get this really incredible moment in the movie where after sorting through some of their stuff, they're having this moment that is sexually charged. And Miyano, who's shorter than Sasaki, and because he's more petite, a lot of people might expect him to be the uke-slash-bottom in this instance, he stops the moment that they're having and says, “I'm not an uke.” And this is also backed by the fact that Miyano does not have uke hair [laughs] but Sasaki does. 

NiNi 

[laughs] I know what that is now. 

Ben 

It also gets confused because Sasaki has yaoi hands. 

NiNi 

Okay, wait, pause. What are yaoi hands? 

Ben 

So whenever you're watching yaoi—animated yaoi—seme my hands are fucking enormous, because they want you to focus on their fingers and stuff, so their hands are fucking enormous. 

NiNi 

Listen, the things I learn on this show. 

Ben 

It's interesting because Sasaki, who just recognizes his attraction to Miyano, and maybe knew about himself already—it's a little unclear on that front. He doesn't care what position Miyano wants him to take, he just wants to be with Miyano. It's not that explicit, like the show's not going to point the camera at us and go, “Let's break down and talk about the [laughs] social politics of BL and how it impacts the youths’ maturation.” But it's apparent that it's one of the things it's thinking about because we get this really excellent presentation through Miyano, who is struggling to contextualize their relationship because his primary framework for understanding relationships between two men is formed by BL, which is not a great source, obviously [laughs] for this ‘cause BL is fictional, and is trying to just have fun with a lot of readers preconceptions of stuff. So, we get to watch them figure out what their relationship is going to be while deconstructing some BL presumptions. And it's a really enjoyable experience watching this really adorable little show. 

NiNi 

My brain is still stuck on yaoi hands. 

Ben 

All right, legit. Legit. You can pause right now and you can go Google yaoi hands. It's a whole thing. 

NiNi 

I believe you. [laughs] I'm gonna wait until after the show. So… 

Ben 

Ginny is in the fucking transcript right now Googling ‘yaoi hands.’ 

[both laugh]

NiNi 

Ginny, I don't know if I should say I'm sorry or you're welcome. 

Ben 

The third and final award goes to Sasaki and Miyano, developed by Studio Dean. 

21:41 Sixth Man: Mark Pakin Kuna-anuvit

NiNi 

Our next category of awards is the Sixth Man Award. We are going to name the Sixth Man award for its inaugural awardee, and the inaugural Sixth Man awardee is one Khun Mark Pakin Kuna-anuvit. [fanfare sound] Mark Pakin, the most valuable and versatile supporting actor of the year. So this award shall forever be known after this as the Mark Pakin Sixth Man Award. 

Bestie, I want you to go first here. Why is Mark Pakin not just our inaugural winner, but why is this award being named after him? 

Ben 

It's easy to get caught up in the ships, and the leads, and all the actors, and the big romance parts. But a big part of any successful story is going to be how well the lead characters play off of their supporting characters. It's notable when you look at Mark's credits since 2021, when he first appeared in a small role in I Promised You the Moon, since then every single show he's been in has been one of the highlight shows of the year. 

Mark was in Bad Buddy, My School President, The Warp Effect, Moonlight Chicken, Only Friends, and now Last Twilight. Mark picks good projects and he makes them better because he can play whatever is needed of him in each of these shows. And because, as NiNi says, I bring the lore, when you watch the behind the scenes stuff and what people say about Mark, he is a huge presence behind the scenes helping manage morale and the overall mood of the set when he's present. Mark is working even when the camera is not in front of him, and making sure people are taken care of, and making sure people are grounded, and making sure that people stay in the right headspace so that they can do the work. And it clearly pays off. 

Mark is really talented and you can feel how effective he was as one of the oldest actors on My School President in particular, and helping Gemini in a lot of his scenes. Mark plays so well with Fourth in Moonlight Chicken. Mark has a couple of moments with Earth in Moonlight Chicken that I still think about, like particularly the scene where Saleng receives the dowry gift from Jim, or the scene where he's leaving in, like, episode one and he's kind of shuffling out of the place. Or even just his goofy ass showing up at the end now that he's moved into, like, a value position at the water park he's working at. 

Like, it's so incredible to watch Mark work whenever he's on screen. You are just so excited that he's back on screen and he does that completely from a supporting role. He is doing a great job without stealing the show or the scene from the other people that are in it. No disrespect to some of the other actors out there who are really talented, but they can't help but chew the scenery and take over every moment that they're in. Mark is really good at dialing in his performance to exactly where it needs to be in any scene, any moment. He can go really high or really low. He can go big or small as needed, and then turn it on a dime. And it's so impressive to watch. It's notable that every show he's been in has rated highly with audiences. And I just at this point find it hard to not see a pattern with his presence, and people's general love of his characters, and the shows and the storylines around where his character is involved. 

NiNi 

This year I watched Mark's play—technically six, if you consider the Our Skyy: My School President AU?

Ben 

Kind of counts. We'll call it six. We had six different versions of Mark Pakin on our screen this year. 

NiNi 

And all of them were different. Every single one of them was different. And if you expand out to his other roles, every role that he has ever played, he is a different person. I do not know how he does that. I talked in the Moonlight Chicken episode about how loose he plays as Saleng. His body language is loose. The way that he speaks is loosened. It's such a different version of him that comes up as Nick in Only Friends. You can feel some of the anxiety that comes off of Nick. You can feel his vulnerability. Compare that to Tiwson in My School President, who is nothing if not confident. Ultimately, utterly confident. Every single role that he plays is just different. Physically, he acts differently. He sounds different. The way that he interacts with the other characters becomes different. He is building these characters right in front of our eyes, almost in a weird way, in real time. And then when you see him off the clock—well, not off the clock—but when you see him behind the scenes and you see him just sort of being Mark, that's a completely different person, too. 

I am not the lore person, Ben is the lore person. But I did happen to see within the last couple of days a conversation on some one of these variety shows between Mark and Namtan. And Namtan is talking about being on the Last Twilight set and working with Film on the upcoming GL Pluto. And the way that Mark interacts with Namtan, and the way that they discuss acting, and the way that he supports her in those moments in the variety show. Like, he's kind of interviewing her but also praising her. I just think about what it's like to have somebody like Mark in your corner on set. And he did this too, we saw, in some of the behind the scenes on Only Friends. There's a particular one that I'm thinking of where Force played a fairly difficult emotional scene. And after the scene was over, Mark was there to say, “Yeah, guy, that was really good.” And to discuss in detail and specificity what about the way the that Force acted in that take really worked. 

Ben 

He was gassing Force up, and Force was eating it up. He was a little shy about it, but Mark came in and was yelling at this man. He's like, “You did amazing! You fucking crushed that, dude!” 

NiNi 

Mark is what I like to call an actor's actor. I don't know what else to say about this dude. He's only 25. There is so much ahead of him. 

Ben 

He's playing a very serious character on Last Twilight right now, and I remember seeing in one of the early behind the scenes things Aof was talking about Mark and he's like, “We weren't sure what was going on. Like, Mark was playing the scene and we were like, wait, what's going on? Mark Pakin’s on screen but we're not laughing or smiling.” And they asked Mark about it and he's like, “Well, I'm not playing a comedic character. Like, this is pretty—it's a pretty sad character, guys.”

NiNi 

One of the stories of this year, I think that we're going to get into a little bit in the year in review, is people finally putting some goddamn respect on some comedic actors' names. Because, guys comedy is hard. It is so hard. It is harder in certain ways than playing drama. And so when you get a really good, really good comedic actor, you should know off the bat that they're gonna be good at drama, because it's just easier. Mark Pakin is a really fucking good comedic actor. I don't know where this kid came from. 

Ben 

Nadao Bangkok. 

NiNi 

Well, yes, there was that. [both laugh] He's only 25. He's got so much ahead of him. But in terms of what's already behind him, gotta give him props for that. And that is why he is both the inaugural Sixth Man award awardee and is going to be the person after whom this award is named going forward. So congratulations to Mark Pakin Kuna-anuvit. 

Ben 

We're big fans of yours, Mark, if you ever hear this. Please keep working. We love everything you're doing, and I'm really glad you committed to acting. 

NiNi 

I genuinely cannot wait to see what this kid does next. 

31:33 Standout Queer Narrative: Moonlight Chicken

NiNi

We are now in the Standout Queer Narratives category of our Special Class awards. These three shows are chosen because while they might be in genre, they're not really of genre.

Ben

So, BL is a romance genre. The thrust of BL is about the romantic relationship at its core, and seeing it to completion. You go to a BL and you expect the very pretty boys in the intro to flirt with each other a bunch and eventually sort out their dramas and pair up by the end. Sometimes we're dramatic and they don't pair up, but we come to the genre because we want to see the cute boys get together. There's a big difference between a queer drama and a queer romance. And BL is romance. And so if you're wondering where Moonlight Chicken was  [fanfare sound] [laughs] for the last week with us, it's why it's here. We talked about this in our episode, which you can go listen to. We praised it for, like, an hour and a half. 

Moonlight Chicken is a family drama. The only ‘I love you’ said in the whole show is between Jim and Li Ming. The relationship between Wen and Jim is important, but it's primarily about how Jim's queer experience has further weakened the version of his life he thought he was building, and how Wen is an opportunity for him to not perpetually punish himself for the way certain things went wrong. It is important to the story but their romance is part of the drama around the diner, and the people who are connected to Jim. Like, Saleng and Praew are not a side couple, and I wouldn't even classify Heart and Li Ming as a side couple in this. They are just one of the dynamics that's being explored in this show, and it has resonance with Jim because Li MIng is Jim’s son in all but name. And so that's the crux of the whole story here. 

Moonlight Chicken is truly fantastic, and I don't know that if we put Moonlight Chicken under the traditional scope we were doing in the award show that it would have won in every category it was in, but it would have probably superseded a lot of these just because of the scope of the project. That is not fair to the other shows, because the other shows are operating under the presumptions of romance as a genre. 

It may feel like we're splitting hairs to some of you, and I'm sorry I can't make it more clear or explain this better. But we don't like to put bad bitches up against each other [NiNi laughs] on this podcast.

NiNi

Not even in our awards shows.

Ben

Like our award shows are really about, like, these are the top two projects that we really like the most. We give them awards because it's more dramatic for us to fight over who's better than the other one. But it isn't good to put a project like Moonlight Chicken up against the other shows that we talked about earlier this week with you all. 

NiNi, any other things you want to add for Moonlight Chicken, since we've already gushed over the show once this year.

NiNi

I mean, we spent—unedited—close to three hours talking about Moonlight Chicken. I don't know what I can say that I haven't already said about this show. It is not primarily a romance. There are some parts of the audience that kind of bounced off of it or bounced off parts of it. And that's because it's not a romance. And that's okay if you come to this genre expecting romance, and you see Moonlight Chicken and you're just kind of like, “Oh, I don't know.” I'm going to judge you a little bit, but ultimately, yeah, you're right. It's not a romance. What it is is a haunting, absolutely haunting examination of love and loss and family and intergenerational trauma. It's about community. It's about coming to terms with yourself at literally every stage of being. Coming to terms with yourself in your youth, coming to terms with yourself as you start to become a real adult, coming to terms with yourself in your middle age. I have no more words, so I'm not going to try.

Ben

It has Mark Pakin in it!

NiNi

[laughs] If you haven't watched this and you like things like Parenthood or Friday Night Lights.

Ben

Aging ourselves immediately.

NiNi

Go watch it.

Ben

It is our Standout Queer Narrative as the family drama of the year that we were most enamored by.

NiNi

Moonlight Chicken produced and aired by GMMTV, starring Earth Pirapat Watthanasetsiri and Mix Sahaphap Wongratch among others, including the Sixth Man Mark Pakin, and directed by Aof Noppharnach Chaiyahwimhon.

38:02 Standout Queer Narrative: The Warp Effect

Ben

Our next show that we wanted to talk about was The Warp Effect [fanfare sound] as our after-school special [laughs] show of the year. It also has Mark Pakin in it!

NiNi

[laughs] This is not a coincidence. I think Ben is right. I think that putting Mark Pakin in your show automatically raises the level.

Ben

So, despite our [laughs] mixed bag of Jojo shows this year, he and NiNew did a really good job on The Warp Effect, exploring the social politics of sex, and how they impact people even 10 years later for the things you do in high school. I think they did a good job with the sex ed 101 component of it. You could see some of Jojo's Gay OK, Bangkok roots coming back there. And it was a lot of fun seeing Jojo work with a large cast of men and women talking about the way sex worked for them, how it didn't necessarily always work for some of them. And it was so legible! Like, it was amazing to me from week-to-week how much recall I had of that show from week-to-week, ‘cause that show was packed. It had like three to five threads it was juggling in every single episode, and yet I was still able to hold them from week to week—and as you all know, I watch too much. So, the likelihood that I forget stuff is high. 

It was so much fun to watch this for the 12 weeks it was on.

NiNi

One of the things that I think it did really well is balance its themes with its narrative. I think that a lot of shows this year sort of failed at that balance. I think The Warp Effect was probably the strongest at doing that all year. It doesn't fall into the BL categories because it's not a BL.

Ben

The main character is literally straight.

NiNi

But we wanted to acknowledge all the things that it did really well, and also acknowledge that it was a very queer narrative, because the main character, yes, is straight and he has straight problems. But within the show we have a gay couple, a lesbian couple, Mark Pakin in a relationship with a trans woman.

Ben

Who Mark made blush all the time. [both laugh]

NiNi

Again, that behind the scenes stuff he's so good at. We had couples involved in kink, which kink is not technically queer, but they're definitely in the vicinity.

Ben

They're getting their asses beat with us on the streets. They count.

NiNi

We've got an aromantic character. We've got bisexuals, we've got everybody in this show. It is super queer in only the way a Jojo show can really be. And it was just fun to watch. It is an after school special that did not feel preachy. It was lighthearted where it needed to be. It was serious where it needed to be. It's a great show and definitely one of the standout great narratives of the year. 

The Warp Effect produced and aired by GMMTV. Starring everybody you can think of [laughs], directed by Jojo Tichakorn Phukhaotong.

41:30 Standout Queer Narrative: What Did You Eat Yesterday? 2

NiNi

Our final Standout Queer Narrative award, and our final Special Class award goes to the granddaddy of this podcast. It’s What Did You Eat Yesterday? Season 2, guys. [fanfare sound] Do we even need to explain this?

Ben

The only thing that could have possibly made What Did You Eat Yesterday? 2 better was if Mark Pakin was somehow involved with it.

[both laugh]

NiNi

I can’t stand you. So What Did You Eat Yesterday? falls into the slice-of-life genre. We would have talked about What Did You Eat Yesterday? ad nauseam in our Om Nom Nom episode, which you would have heard if the editing is right… last week… sometime?

Ben

Oh my God.

NiNi

[laughs] Don't quote me on that. Listen guys, the editing is…it's gonna be what it is. So we would have waxed poetic about this show for, at the very least, an hour.

Ben

And you've already heard Ginny’s supercut of me mentioning the show unprompted all year long.

NiNi

You would have definitely heard Ben, bringing up What Did You Eat Yesterday? every chance he gets in our holiday clip show. 

This show is amazing. Nishijima and Uchino are amazing. I did not expect to get more What Did You Eat Yesterday? this year. The fact that we got it is a gift.

Ben

This season 2 picks up a little bit after the movie. Shiro and Kenji been together for about eight years now, and we continue with more stories about their lives. The big theme for this season: they are dealing with the fact that they are in their 50s now. They're getting older and they're going through physical and emotional changes, and there are changes going on in their personal, professional, and family lives that they also have to manage as well. 

This show remains kind of unique. BL is romance. It’s focused on people getting together. What What Did You Eat Yesterday? is focused on as a slice-of-life food drama, is about a couple staying together and dealing with the things that come up in their lives. Less than a handful of shows allow us to return to characters and see how they're doing and if they're going to make it and stick together. And What Did You Eat Yesterday? is so important in that regard, not just because it's about a long-term relationship. It's also about older gay men. And it's super important that we conceive of the idea that there are older gay couples. We do get to grow old with each other. That's also–and marriage equality is important. You want your boys to grow old together? There are gays who are old right now. You deserve to see gays getting older together and doing their best for each other. 

What a lovely season we had because everybody got to grow this season. We got to see Shiro take on more professional responsibility than he was maybe willing to. Kenji got to grow professionally as well. Wataru was still a bitch the whole time, but he feels like a friend now?

[both laugh]

NiNi

I'm still creasin’ over the 50 balloon. [laughs] Oh God, that was such bitchy energy. I love it.

Ben

I just love how at this point, Kohinata and Wataru feel like their friends. And that was so important for me that we got to see them having a relationship with another gay couple. Kenji finally got to meet Kayoko this season. What a delight that was.

NiNi

And Kayoko treating him like a celebrity when she runs into him in the grocery store. So fun. Great, phenomenal, fantastic show anchored by some of the best performances by two of the greats.

Ben

Man, that's another thing we should talk about. The-the other reason why we need older gay characters: we deserve to see more veteran actors in the genre. This is not a knock on the young and up-and-coming talent or the OGs who are still doin’ the work. We deserve to see veteran actors bringing veteran-level talent to this genre more often than we do.

NiNi

What Did You Eat Yesterday? produced and aired by TV Tokyo, starring Nishijima Hidetoshi and Uchino Seiyou. You have won the coveted standout Queer Narrative Special Class award from The Conversation.

46:54 Outro

That is going to wrap us up on the 2023 Very Important Internet BL Awards, the VIIB Awards. It's kind of sad to see this go, but we will be back with the VIIB Awards next year when we get to discuss a whole new bunch of stuff. 

Looking forward to it. With that, we out. 

Say “bye” to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

#podcast #lgbtq #thai bl #bl series #filipino bl #taiwanese bl #japanese bl #on art #season 5 #winter series #Spotify

[the-conversation-pod]

The VIIB Awards 2024: Top Tings

Continuing with Part 4 of 5 of the Very Important Internet BL Awards, we are handing out our awards for our favorites!

We will be awarding our Best GL, Best Genre Romance, Best Workplace Romance, Best Second Chance Romance, Best High School Romance, and BL of the Year.

Join us today and for the rest of the week as we continue tomorrow with our Special Class Awards. Tell us your winners in the notes!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:23 - Introduction 02:29 - Interlude: The very best in nosy neighbors from Big Eden (2000) 03:02 - Best GL 05:03 - Best Genre Romance 10:18 - Best Workplace Romance 16:02 - Best Second Chance Romance 21:20 - Best High School Romance 34:45 - BL of the Year 40:09 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

[fanfare sound]

01:23 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back. It is now time for the final segment.

NiNi

That's the Top Tings, and I know that you just said the final segments and not the Top Tings because you can't say “the Top Tings.” It makes you feel weird. [laughs]

Ben

I feel like I'm making fun of my cousins to the south if I say it!

NiNi

You get a pass this one time. [laughs]

So, we have changed, actually, our entire Top Tings segment from. Last year, we did awards by country, and we had a long discussion this year about what would be the most effective way to award the best of the best. Based on just the sheer volume coming out of Thailand, it would neither be fair nor appropriate to segment this section by country. So we have revamped and reworked the segment. We’re looking at sub genres within the BL genre.

02:29 - Interlude: The very best in nosy neighbors from Big Eden (2000)

Widow Thayer

“Yes, that, that Thanksgiving business.”

Bird

“You're wasting your efforts, Pike.”

Pike

“My efforts? My efforts! I'm just cooking food here!” 

Jim

“If only that were true.” 

Pike

“[sighs] I… I just want things to be… nice for him. I—I know it sounds foolish, but I just want things to be nice for him.”

Jim

“Thing is, Pike, uh. We want things to be nice for you too, buddy.”

03:02 - Best GL

NiNi

We start with a sub genre that is not in the BL genre, but it's still an important genre to us, and that is Best GL. 

Y’all, we were so excited for GL this year and then basically, very little GL actually happened, so there isn't actually really much to award this year. We've got one award to hand out—no runner up. 

So the winner of the Best GL this year is GAP the series? [fanfare sound]

Ben

It really is the only show.

NiNi

It was the only GL this year that we saw that we truly thought made the grade, that took the genre seriously. So GAP, what can I say about GAP? We cried. We laughed. We cackled towards the end. Ben suggested that somebody use somebody else like a bat. It was just so much fun, and that was what I wanted out of the first big GL to come out of Thailand. I wanted to have some fun. I wanted the girls to be gorgeous. I wanted all new tropes that had nothing to do with BL. And we got all of those things in GAP.

Ben

We did. We got “Let me taste the lipstick that I just put on you.” That's great. Good job, girls.

NiNi

Fantastic. No notes. [laughs] 

GAP was so fun. It was so fresh. It felt so different. It didn't feel like a BL in GL clothes. It felt like a GL. And, so, it wins the Best GL of the year. 

Hopefully next year we do better.

05:03 - Best Genre Romance

NiNi

Moving on. Our next category is Best Genre Romance, and this is a category to award romances in the action, horror, mystery, sci-fi and fantasy realms. 

The runner up for best genre romance is Be My Favorite. [applause sound] 

I am the resident Be My Favorite cheerleader. Ben likes the show, too, but I am the resident Be My Favorite cheerleader of this podcast. Really, what sells this is how Be My Favorite utilized its core conceit: its time travel element. It was so legible. It was simply designed, and it tied into both the structure and the characterization.

Ben

For me, in a genre story, the conceit matters to the way the story is going to unfold. It can't be an incidental part, and the way that time travel mechanic informs the story that's unfolding is really one of the stand out plot devices of the year. They never use it as a cop out, and I think that is one of the reasons why I was positive about the show more than anything else.

NiNi

It's not a cop out. It's not a deus ex machina. It is a Macguffin, but it is not a useless Macguffin. It is an incredibly impactful mechanic. There's two points in the story where it really stands out as an excellent use. The first one is when Kawi goes forward the second time, and his life is completely changed and he's miserable. And the second time that it's used, I think to incredible effect, is when Pisaeng travels back in time. The time travel mechanic itself and the way it was used in the story really resonates. 

So the runner up for best genre romance is Be My Favorite in the sci-fi subcategory for its time travel mechanic. 

Ben, who's the winner?

Ben

The winner of best genre romance this year is The End of the World With You [fanfare sound] because they used an impending apocalypse story as a way to do a really fucked up second chance romance. 

The world is ending and the characters we have are so messed up that they don't care or despair about this at all, because they have all stopped living in one way or another. They have given up, and so the fact that this story is about those characters choosing to live while staring into the abyss… It's just really so, so good. 

I really like that The End of the World With You uses this really well-executed end of the world coming soon setting to force these characters to reckon with the harm that they inflicted upon each other and themselves, and recognize that they don't just want to give up on life because they had a bad run of it. Your first losses can be really, really difficult. I don't want to ever downplay anyone's pain or suffering. But we're still here. This is our shot. You gotta take it. You have to get up. I don't know what getting up looks like for you, but you gotta get up. It's not over.

NiNi

Just thinking about The End of the World With You always makes me incredibly emotional because it is about the desperation of hope. It's so easy to just give up, and to give up in the face of what feels like absolutely impending doom, and then instead to say, “Actually, no, I'm not going to give up,” and then to have that work.

Ben

It's funny because we award Be My Favorite for doing, like, hard science fiction really well, by having a very straightforward conceit and following the rules of that conceit. But here we're awarding this show—we're kind of doing, like, a soft magic thing, where it doesn't matter what the rules of Yuma’s powers are. It's just he is a teenage boy with the ability to rewrite reality, and helping this teenage boy manage his own angst is how you save the world. [laughs] So fun.

NiNi

Save the world by becoming gay dads to a teenage boy who, along the way, falls in love with somebody experiencing gender. It's fantastic. No notes.

10:18 - Best Workplace Romance

NiNi

We're looking now at Best Workplace Romance, and I gotta say, I think 2023 was kind of the year of the workplace romance. There were a lot of them this year. Some worked well, some did not. [laughs] But I think what we have here is two of the best, and again, I'm going to engage in a little propaganda for one of my favorites. 

So for me, the point of setting a workplace drama is that you're either gonna be examining power dynamics, diverging goals and motivations, or queerness at work. To me, the best workplace romances in the BL genre deal with all three of these, and that's how I picked the winner. But before we get to the winner, I'll let Ben talk about the runner up.

Ben

So the runner up for this year is going to be Love in Translation. [applause sound] I generally do not like that most workplace romances are about the power differential between the boss and their employee. It irritates me to no end. It's a form of wish fulfillment that feels a little grounded in a dynamic where men make more money than women, so you're trying to romance your boss to kick up your social status a little bit. It feels a little heteronormative in BL, and it's rare that I feel like the queer dynamics of this are explored well at all. 

Love in Translation really works for me because the show goes out of its way to make the two characters equal by using Thai law to make that happen. And the two of them have to work together to make this functional. Working towards the goals they have for why they even agree to be part of the business enable them to grow closer with each other, and recognize that the thing that they're finding in each other is probably what's more important for them at this point. And the show ends by turning the whole franchise into a worker collective. How cool is that?

NiNi

I enjoyed Love in Translation and I definitely understand what the things are that you're looking for in a workplace BL, but for me, if you're not examining what it means to be in a romance at work, then the workplace just becomes a setting. It's not integral to the subgenre at that point. It's just a backdrop. I appreciate that, of the three things that I said that I'm looking for in a workplace romance, what Love in Translation does explore is this idea of divergent motivations, because they both want the store to succeed, but they have different means of doing that and they have different reasons for doing that. And sometimes their reasons, butt up against each other. That to me was a fascinating workplace element of setting this in their little store. I thought it was really neat. I thoroughly enjoyed that, and I think it absolutely deserves the runner up. 

The winner—the controversial winner—of the Best Workplace Romance Award. It's gotta be Step by Step. [fanfare sound] If we're talking about these three elements: examining power dynamics, looking at divergent goals and motivations, and looking at queerness at work, Step by Step does all three, and I think it did them remarkably well. In fact, the parts of Step by Step that I thought were really well done were the parts that had to do with the workplace dynamic. 

The workplace dynamics and the workplace setup of Step by Step mattered. The fact that this romance was happening at work, it mattered. The way that work came in between Pat and Jeng in the end, that mattered. The way that for Pat and Jeng to reconcile, they had to move away from the workplace, that mattered. That resonated, and I think that that was all incredibly well done, and that's before we even get to Chot. What Chot represents in the workplace. 

One thing I will say about Tee—of that darling angry little man. When he wants to talk about queerness and capitalism, queerness at work, power dynamics and queerness, he gets it. And so, to me, the Best Workplace Romance for 2023 has to go to Step by Step. Flawed as it is—and we did give it a Girl You Tried award this year—it was still the best workplace romance that we saw this year.

Ben

I'm giving it an award as a workplace show, not as a workplace romance.

NiNi

[laughs] Ben’s in the corner here, grumpy.

Ben

We had a lot of discussion about this particular category, because there are quite a few shows set in workplaces this year. We ended up eliminating them for specific criteria reasons, but I do hope that the workplace becomes a more effectively used setting going forward. I'd like to have a different conversation next year about shows set in workplaces.

16:02 - Best Second Chance Romance

NiNi

Our next category is Best Second Chance Romance. Second chance romance was also a pretty hot topic this year. Usually when we get into the second chance romance well, it is time fuckery versus head fuckery, but it is all head fuckery here at the top. Second chance is really also divided into. Romances where people didn't take the first chance, and romances where people fucked up the first chance. 

In terms of romances where people fucked up the first chance and our runner up, it is The End of the World With You. [applause sound] As a second chance romance, I find this incredibly powerful. Masumi and Ritsu had such a rending when they broke up. Masumi's entire life has been conducted in the wreckage of Masumi and Ritsu’s breakup. Masumi hasn't really been living since then, and Ritsu has been—we find out at the end of the show—living with serious regrets about what he did to Masumi. The way that the apocalypse gives them both the space to, in a way, seek each other out because, again, we find out at the end of the show that Ritsu deliberately went to the library because he knew Masumi would be there and he might run into him. And I think that Masumi subconsciously went to the library because he told Ritsu that that would be what he did if it ever came to the end of the world. I think that these two wanted to find each other again. I think that they wanted something to give them the space to reconnect and the apocalypse did just that. There's so much in the structuring of The End of the World With You. We know that Yuma technically caused the impending apocalypse, but there's also some argument as to whether Masumi and Ritsu brought it on. as well. 

It's an incredibly good writing of the second chance romance trope and the way that it ends up playing out in terms of how these two come back together, how they make their apologies, how they forgive, and how they reconcile. I just think it's so cool.

Ben

Moving on to our winner, the Best Second Chance Romance this year is Our Dating Sim. 

[fanfare sound] 

This was the winner. There was gonna be no debate about that. Second chance romance is the gayest subgenre of romance because gay people have to have second chance romances because of homophobia. It's Lee Wan’s inability to believe that Shin Ki Tae could feel what he's feeling, and then he panics in the moment and runs away. Under BL considerations, Wan is the uke who wants to be pursued by Shin Ki Tae. And he essentially punishes both of them because he confesses, which is not his role. The seme, realizing what he was supposed to do late, does not give up on the uke and spends seven years looking for him, and then meets again and then aggressively pursues this time. 

From a queer standpoint, Shin Ki Tae was not necessarily fully aware of his feelings for Wan when they were kids, but then discovers it very quickly after Wan runs away. Struggles with this realization and then resolves to find him again. What happens when people who were together once before get back together, they kind of regress a little bit, and they start going back into the dynamic they had before to try and figure out what was there. I really loved that the end of one of their dates was them hanging out and playing video games and reading manga because that's what they did as kids. And they talked about how there was maybe a gay thing going on even then and exploring what that means and revisiting some of the earlier moments that they have with each other properly. There were a couple of attempts at second chance romance this year that spent way too much time in the angst of it all and not in the second chance of it all. This show, with the least time, did it best for me. Particularly because it doesn't pretend that everything is okay. One of Ki Tae’s issues is that he has a fear of abandonment when it comes to Lee Wan that he will be working through for quite some time, and I love that the show played that out. 

This was an excellent example of what gay second chance romance should look like that also plays with some BL trope expectations.

21:20 - Best High School Romance

NiNi 

Moving on to Best High School Romance. Now, it seems like BL is always in here, but when we look back, BL doesn't actually touch on high school that much. I feel like a lot of the reason that people think that there's a lot of high school BL is because they tend to flash back to high school? That is a pretty well-worn trope. I think that a lot of people have conflated those flashbacks with high school romance stories. 

Ben 

Almost every goddamn BL [laughs] flashes back to high school at one point or another.

NiNi 

Exactly! And I feel like that gets conflated with these things being set in high school. It gets tarred with the brush of, “Oh, there's too much high school BL,” when actually there isn't that much. Anyway, all of that to say, one of the reasons we wanted to do a high school romance category is we think there were some really good ones this year. 

High school is becoming more fertile ground for some good romances. As a person who had a fairly typical high school experience and feels the nostalgia, I guess, radiating off of some of this stuff, I enjoy high school romances. Ben has slightly different views, I think. 

In terms of what I'm looking for in a high school romance, to me, a high school romance requires some of the coming-of-age, loss-of-innocence elements to be included, along with falling in love. And it's supposed to feel outsized—big dumb love. That's what I am looking for in my high school romances. 

Ben, what's your criteria when you're looking at high school romance? 

Ben 

So…I went to an all male Catholic school and I was a refugee for a full year of high school. I was also deeply in the closet. I don't remember high school fondly, particularly when it comes to romance. The bubbly version of high school is not what I remember? I remember the angst. I remember the crises I was having about what this truth about myself meant for my life. The bubbly version of high school is 100% fanciful to me. Sometimes it hurts to watch that—you go, is that what I was supposed to have? Why didn't I get to have that? 

So, we went into this category with very different lenses. We ended up really struggling with awarding in this category. The things that NiNi is connecting to are very different from the things that I am connecting to with the two projects we ended up settling on when we were trying to decide who to award. 

NiNi 

I think this is the first award that we've ever come down to where we genuinely considered a tie [laughs] just because what we were looking at was so different and not really reconcilable. But in the end, we did choose a runner up and a winner. 

So Ben, I will let you tell us. Who is the runner up for Best High School Romance? 

Ben 

The runner up for High School Romance goes to I Cannot Reach You [applause sound] from TBS in Japan. Many pointed out that we don't get a lot of high school romances in BL, actually. We also do not get friends to lovers that often. Most of the time the boys are not really friends, they're just dating. The big thing with friends to lovers is that there are stakes. The friendship you have is an important relationship and wanting romance and or sex from that relationship. does strain it. In the concept of BL, you're talking about people being gay, being gay is going to change the way you interact with the world. Part of why I Cannot Reach You works for me so much, is Yamato doesn't want to inflict queerness upon his friend, despite how deeply he wants to be with him. And it's very rare that a show captures that properly. 

The show has Kakeru’s exploration and accepting of Yamato's feelings and what that means play out in a way that is really earnest. And even though there's this whole breaking point with them where you can't go back, Kakeru later admits that he wasn't upset about it. He was just surprised, which is also a very real boy conversation. And I like that the show ends with things they get together, but they fight a lot, because they're friends. They are still going to be sorting out their relationship for a while. Because they have other baggage they bring to it from just how they've gotten used to knowing each other. 

I Cannot Reach You and our winner are two really special projects from this year in terms of actually exploring what it means to be young and trying to deal with some of this shit. I am always going to be more sensitive to the shows that are willing to stare directly into the hellishness of being gay and young. Because I try to be fun and entertaining for all of you, but I was a very sad little stressed boy throughout my adolescence, and I like when BL is cognizant of what it means to actually be gay and young and trying to sort your shit out. 

NiNi 

Ben is right that the best high school romance takes you back to what it felt like to be young, and to be dealing with this shit. For him, that skews in one direction, and for me that skews in entirely another. 

Our winner of Best High School Romance is My School President. The realism for me, from my perspective, of having a group of friends at the end of high school. There is so much coming down the pike, but you got one last year that one last chance to just be a bunch of dumb fucking kids and maybe, maybe have a dream come true before you go out into the real world and it kicks you around. To me, that is what My School President captured. 

I mean, these kids are idiots and they are still allowed to be idiot kids at this point in time. That's not gonna last forever. There's a sense of things being there and not at the same time, of this idea of youth slipping away slowly and quickly, all at the same time—this idea that things will never be like this again and so you kind of have to grab what you can—that permeates My School President. And I found it just the quintessence of what a high school story should be in that regard for me, anyway. That wave of love and nostalgia that takes you over that sense of impending doom that's happening at the same time, that excitement for the future and at the same time, the fear of it looking back at the things that you may have done or not done, because this is sort of the first big reflection point of your life, coming to the end of high school. And for that to be happening along with the first real love. They cooked that shit up in a lab just for me. 

Gun and Tinn, to me, are the perfect high school romance because it is that mix of innocent and serious, that sense of them being kind of playful puppies, but at the same time there are these very deep, very real, very serious feelings that need to be treated in a deep, real, serious way. I tend to talk about how important I think love is—if you are a person for whom romantic love is important—how important it is at every stage of romantic love at every stage of life and every way that romantic love happens to you. And again, if romantic love is something that is part of your identity. People tend to dismiss first loves, young loves and all of that because these things don't tend to last very long. But to me, just because something doesn't last, just because it is a short lived, beautiful thing, doesn't make it any less real. 

And one of the things that I really appreciate about the couples in My School President, particularly Gun and Tinn, is that Tinn has had this crush for a really, really long time on Gun. Gun is in a journey of self discovery, and he finds something in terms of how he feels for Tinn. And even if this doesn't actually pan out, even if this doesn't last the summer, even if this is something that doesn't go beyond or too far beyond the end of high school. It's still real. It still matters. Everything that they felt, everything that they said to each other, it's still all there. It still all matters. It's still all incredibly real. I really resent young love and first love being treated as less important. I think actually that your first love is incredibly important. Because it sort of sets up how you are going to conceive of love going forward. And I think that in terms of setting up particularly Gun and Tinn, and to some extent, Sound and Win, as first loves, you kind of get a sense of how the future trajectory of these characters’ individual love lives will go, whether they stay together or don't stay together after high school is less relevant. What happens with the romances now? What happens with them in high school? How they fall for each other, how they talk to each other, how they treat each other? These are all things that are being set in them for the future, and to me, that's, like, the big part of high school romance. You're learning how to be in love. You're learning how to treat somebody in love. It’s bubbly. It makes me feel good. They're so cute. Cute as a big part of high school romance to me as well. It has to be adorable, and My School President was. It's a winner. 

Ben 

With Gun and Tinn, part of why I am amenable to My School President is Tinn is doing the thing that little gay overachievers [laughs] always do. He doesn't know how to romance Gun except by just trying to support him. And I think that that is genuinely really sweet. The question for you always is why are these two little homos gonna be together. Tinn just likes to see his little loser boyfriend try really hard at the things he likes, and is willing to go out of his way to help him with those things. And he likes the determination that Gun brings to the table, and I could appreciate that. And I like for Gun that part of his journey is accepting that he will need someone else in his corner besides his mom. There's a sense that since he lost his dad, he's been missing someone else in his corner. 

I liked both of these shows, and it was really tough to award this particular category. 

34:45 - BL of the Year

NiNi 

Moving on to BL of the year. Whoo! We argued a bit. 

Ben 

For, like, months! We've been arguing about this since April. 

NiNi 

And we were arguing, really, right down to the end. And in the end, the reason that the winner wins is because I went back to last year's BL of the year. And I listened to how we conceived of and discussed BL of the Year. So the main crux of the argument that we had this year about the BL of the Year is about whether this award is about the past or the future. Is this an award about pioneering? Or is this an award about perfecting? The award, in the end is really about influencing the future of the genre. 

The runner up for BL of the year is My School President. [applause sound] Everything that BL has been doing from Love Sick in 2014 until now, this first decade, has come to a head and been truly perfected in My School President. I think all the churn, all the experimentation, everything that BL has done in the last decade came down to this. This is the first wave BL. This is the proto BL and that's why for me it was the runner up for the BL of the Year. 

So Ben, who's the winner, who has pioneered their way into winning BL of the year this year. 

Ben 

Let's talk about the role of pioneering here. I come from a queer cinema lens. The genre is always advancing. My School President doesn't exist without the work that came before it that pushed the genre to be something other than it was at the time. I like to focus on the work that I think is challenging the genre itself the most. 

The winner of BL of the Year for pushing the genre is La Pluie. [fanfare sound] La Pluie is special for me because it's the only show this year that pushed me to write every week for eight weeks beyond just doing my normal Stray Thoughts reactions. I felt a need to advocate for this show. One of the struggles that I've watched long time fans have is we bring too much genre expectation to it. La Pluie was so legible. More than anything, La Pluie was asking about the nature of romance itself. 

So much of what's wrong with all the characters in this show is romance itself. Tai is a goddamn mess because the boy reads too much romance. He's got too many issues about his parents not having the perfect romance that they were supposed to have. This also impacts Saengtien, as well. He's kind of got similar hang ups about how he thinks things should go. Maybe he doesn't express himself the way he should because he also brings a lot of presumptions to this. But La Pluie asks you. Are you willing to do the work to be in the romance? Like, if you see the tropes lining up for you perfectly and you're vibing with somebody? Are you gonna show up and do the work to be in that romance with them? Or are you just gonna get mad at them for not doing what you expect them to do because you've watched 200 BLs [laughs] and now you feel like you understand romance and what human interaction should look like? 

My favorite thing about La Pluie this year was they never faked out when it came time to deal with sexual tension. Like, and then, the fact that they were releasing the sexual tension led to more interesting complications and things to unpack in the relationship. It is so much more interesting when we let the characters have a little bit of sex and then deal with the outcomes of what that means and what the sex signified to those characters. In a show that's about romantic desire that plays around with sexual desire, that is super important for me. 

So congratulations to the entire team at La Pluie. I saw what you all did and it was fantastic.

40:09 - Outro

NiNi

Hoo! So Ben, we've gotten through our Top Tings. I think that the people will have noticed that there were a few things missing from the awards. That's not because we didn't see these things or we're not going to talk about these things. We've got a bunch of Special Class awards coming at you tomorrow—again, if the editing holds up—tomorrow [laughs], we're going to be talking about our Special Class awards in three categories. We've got Honorable Mentions, we've got a very special actor award to give out. And we have got our Standout Queer Narratives of the Year. 

Look forward to that coming at you tomorrow. Until then, we out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

#podcast #lgbtq #thai bl #bl series #winter series #korean bl #japanese bl #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #on art #the viib awards

[the-conversation-pod]

The VIIB Awards 2024: Immortal Technique!

Continuing with Part 3 of 5 of the Very Important Internet BL Awards, we are handing out our awards for everyone behind the scenes!

We will be awarding our Best OST Song, Best Music, Best Production, Best Writing, and Best Direction.

Join us today and for the rest of the week as we continue tomorrow with Top Tings. Tell us your winners in the notes!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:23 - Introduction 02:34 - Interlude: Making a movie, Eddie Mannix style - Hail, Caesar! (2016) 03:57 - Best OST Song 10:03 - Best Music 16:35 - Best Production 22:13 - Best Writing 27:17 - Best Direction 34:19 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

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00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

[fanfare sound]

01:23 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back. 

Today on part three of the VIIB Awards we will be awarding Immortal Technique, focusing on all of the production and other support roles that are not the people who are crying, or laughing, or screaming on our screens all the time. 

NiNi, please review for the audience the categories we have and our processes.

NiNi

This is usually our favorite episode all year because we get to talk about all the behind the scenes stuff and all the behind the scenes people that make the shows truly great that just give them that extra dazzle and pizzazz that really sells us on the stories. 

This is where we talk about, as Ben said, different aspects of production, we talk a little bit about writing and direction. We usually start out talking about music, and then we move into the rest of production, and we swing by writing—one of my favorite things, and then we usually end up on direction. So I think that's the trajectory we're gonna take.

02:34 - Interlude: Making a movie, Eddie Mannix style - Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Baird Whitlock

“…I mean, we may tell ourselves that we're creating something of artistic value or there's some sort of spiritual dimension to the picture business. But, what it really is, is this fat cat, Nick Skank, out in New York, running this factory, serving up these lollipops to the—what they used to call the bread and circuses for the…”

Eddie Mannix

[grabs Baird and slaps him] “Now, you listen to me, buster. Nick Skank and the Studio have been good to you and to everyone else who works here. If I ever hear you bad mouthing Mr. Skank again, it'll be the last thing you say before I have you tossed in jail for colluding in your own abduction.”

Baird Whitlock

“Eddie, I wouldn't, I would never do that!”

Eddie Mannix

[slaps Baird some more] “Shut up! You're gonna go out there and you're going to finish "Hail Caesar!" You're gonna give that speech at the feet of the penitent thief and you're gonna believe every word you say.”

[slaps Baird some more]

Eddie Mannix

“You're going to do it because you're an actor and that's what you do. Just like the director does what he does and the writer and the script girl and the guy who claps the slate. You're gonna do it because the picture has worth! And you have worth if you serve the picture and you're never gonna forget that again.”

Baird Whitlock

“I won't forget, Eddie.”

Eddie Mannix

“Damn right, you won't. Not as long as I run this dump.”

[Baird walks away]

“There, go out there and be a star.”

03:57 - Best OST Song

NiNi

We always start with music ‘cause as Ben reminded me in our little warm up, I care a lot more about this than he does. [laugh]

Ben

I would just award Boy Sompob every year like, “ooh, did Boy make a song? An award for my favorite boy!” [NiNi laughs] And he did this year. Twice!

NiNi

It wasn't even on my radar, bestie. I'm so sorry.

Ben

And he produced Nunew Chawarin, who we awarded last year.

NiNi

Boy Sompob is a staple and a legend. Unfortunately, he is not on our list this year.

Ben

He's on my list always. Don't worry, bestie.

NiNi

So Ben and I have very different musical tastes and as Ben would have mentioned to you guys, I think last year, I am very sensitive to music because I can hear pretty much close to perfect pitch. And it is physically painful for me when music is not good. So when I tell you that a song is good or that the music in a show is good, know that it is being filtered through that particular lens. 

Our first award of the night is going to go to Best OST Song. This award is given for the song as recorded, so how the song is composed, how it's produced, and how it's performed. Whether the style of the song matches the show, how the song is used within the show, and honestly whether I will listen to the song every time or whether I'm going to fast forward it. 

I will let Ben kick us off with the runner up for Best OST Song. Ben, what did you have on the list here?

Ben

The runner up for Best Original Soundtrack is ‘Plumeria’ from I Feel You Linger In The Air. [applause sound] performed by Cocktail, music by Thitiwat Rongthong and Ohm Cocktail, lyrics by Sichen Li, arranged by Korn Mahadamrongkul, Thitiwat Rongthong, and Cocktail. 

‘Plumeria’ in I Feel You Linger In The Air has this really beautiful string component to it that I really enjoy. Of all of the songs we heard this year, it was the one I felt put me in the right mood as I was going into the show every week and I think about the song sometimes more than I do a lot of the songs that we've heard this year.

NiNi

It's a beautiful song, the orchestration is incredibly impressive. I am a person who loves to hear real instruments. I also love some electronic music, but there's something about real instruments and deep orchestration that puts me in a certain mental and emotional place and ‘Plumeria’ is a really beautiful song. Just thinking about it now I'm visualizing the elements within the story of I Feel You Linger In The Air. It's a very effective song for setting mood, like Ben said. So ‘Plumeria’ is our runner up. 

The winner for Best OST Song is actually going to Japan this year, to ‘Futatabi’ from The End of the World With You [fanfare sound] performed by HIROBA and Otsuka Ai, music and lyrics by Otsuka Ai and Mizuno Yoshiki, arranged by Tsutaya Koichi. 

I love the Immortal Technique episode because we just get to read out lists and lists of names of people who you have probably never heard of, but are really running shit.

Ben

If any of them or their friends or family hear this episode, I apologize if we butchered your names.

NiNi

I am doing my very best with Japanese pronunciation. I am trying extremely hard. I want to get it right. ‘Futatabi’ is the song that plays at the end of every episode of The End of the World With You. It penetrated my consciousness from the very beginning, but the episode where it really, really connected is the episode that ends with all of our heroes screaming at the meteor to go away. They want to live. There is something about it playing over that scene that just sends it into the stratosphere for me, and ever since that moment, every time I hear that song, it just makes me think of that sentiment, that “I want to live” sentiment. It has so much hope to it, so much desperate hope, so much absolute refusal to give up, and it's just a beautiful song. 

So, Best OST Song goes to ‘Futatabi’ from The End of the World With You.

Ben

I'm really glad you talked about how you felt emotionally about that song because I just finished showing a friend the Pornographer series, which was made by a lot of the same people who made The End of the World With You. And I feel kind of the same way about the OST for that show as I do about The End of the World With You. There is a similar emotional component to it where the weight pressing down on you is so heavy, but you really don't want to give up and I feel like that team is really good at capturing that.

NiNi

The End of the World With You is a great, fantastic show and if you guys haven't watched it, you can go back to, I believe our spring series, listen to us talk about. Catch the show. We think it's incredible, and you'll get to hear ‘Futatabi’ in context and hopefully you'll agree with me.

10:03 - Best Music

NiNi

We're moving on from Best OST Song to Best Music. The Best Music award covers all the music that is used in a show, so the scoring, the music supervision, music editing, and use of music in the show. 

Ben's going to come again here with the runner up for Best Music.

Ben

Ohh it's I Feel You Linger In The Air again. [applause sound] Congratulations to the team at Banana Sound Studio. You all were fantastic. I often feel like the mixing on Thai shows is too loud and I often feel like the musical choices can be really distracting. Even in this show, it's a little too loud for my taste, but there's a fullness and a richness to the way all of the sounds and music are really used that I don't find it distracting. I think it fits the overall tonality of the show, because this is the big swoony romance show of the year, and it's okay for things to be a little bit bigger. 

I think I Feel You Linger In The Air is an excellent example of Thai music used really well in a very Thai production and I really wanna note how much I really enjoyed the use of traditional Thai music in a Thai historical show.

NiNi

I have to concur, the music all over I Feel You Linger In The Air and the way it was used were really fantastic, really helped sell the emotional weight of the story and particularly the decisions of where to use music and where to use silence, which I think is equally important. Great runner up. 

The winner—and Ben’s going to shade me about this, because last year I told him that just because something's a musical, it doesn't automatically win Best Music—and I will maintain that. The winner of Best Music doesn't just win it this year because it's a musical, but because of how they use the music.

And the winner of Best Music this year is My School President. [fanfare sound] Composer Tong Atthaphol Rujiraprawat and Okomo P, music supervisor. The way that the music is used inMy School President, the way that it's constructed, where they use originals, where they use covers, where they use diegetic music, where they use non-diegetic music. For those who are not familiar with these terms, diegetic music is music that is occurring within the context of the story. So this is music that can be heard by the characters, basically, while non-diegetic music is not heard by the characters, so that's usually musical overlays, soundtracks, things like that. 

My School President uses both. It uses original songs, it uses covers. It has very interesting scoring, I thought, aside from the jukebox musical feel of it and the jukebox musical elements themselves were also phenomenally used, I think. Basically somebody put a lot of effort into making the musical make sense as a story emotionally and through the characters. More than just making the music entertaining, it turned the music itself into a story. ‘Cause if you go through the songs in order of when they appear in the show, that trajectory, that path is also telling a story. I think that this was so well done. That is why it wins the Best Music of the year.

Ben

And now, audience, if you can imagine NiNi sitting in a brightly lit room. And suddenly the lights dim. [NiNi laughs] A moment of shade. 

How dare you? [laughs] You shat on my favorite little musical from last year. You didn't even watch it!

NiNi

I did not. I started watching it—

Ben

You scoffed!

NiNi

—and I still intend to finish. I never scoffed. How dare you? [Ben laughs] I even said, I even said that the episodes that I did watch it I thoroughly enjoyed the music. I just haven't finished it yet.

Ben

I love that show.

NiNi

I'm not accepting that shade because I have never shaded Rainbow Prince. I liked Rainbow Prince. I just have not had time to finish it. I loved the music that I heard so far from Rainbow Prince. I did not shade it.

Ben

All right, back to the serious. I really enjoyed the music of My School President. I had a lot of fun with it. NiNi and I ended up selecting different songs that really stuck with us, but I really liked Let Me Tell You, that was still my favorite one. That one gets me, I think the most of all of the songs they did in that little show, a lot of fun.

NiNi

For me, my favorite song is the Palmy cover. It's the first song that they sing.

Ben

Unfortunately for them, I am a fan of Palmy, and while it was very cute to see these teenagers sing Palmy, they are not Palmy.

NiNi

Of course they're not Palmy. But that's the point. It's a cover.

Ben

It was fun. It was an okay cover.

NiNi

I especially like that when they do do the covers, so the Chinzhilla band in My School President, they call themselves a Brit pop band, which, mmm, debatable. However, all of the cover songs sound exactly like a high school band that thinks they're singing Brit Pop would sound, which I thought was really clever arranging and composing of the songs. I was definitely impressed that the song sounded like a high school garage band.

Ben

When I did relent to awarding My School President, it was because the music felt properly tuned to the characters themselves, and I thought that that was clever.

NiNi

It's well done, man. It really is well done. I don't think I've seen a use of music like that in BL, and hopefully it's not the last time we see a use of music like that, whether it's in a musical or not.

16:35 - Best Production

NiNi

Moving on from music, we're now moving into the rest of production. The Best Production award. This is the award for basically all the world building stuff. So this is production design and art direction, set design, costuming, hair, makeup, sound design, coloring—the aesthetic specificity. Basically all the things that contribute to what I like to call the vibe of the story. 

The runner up for Best Production is If It's With You [applause sound] from Japan, the production house is MBS, the production designer is Sasuke Yamamoto, and the art director is Satoshi Nonogaki. 

I love Japanese production and what I love about Japanese production is particularly Japanese set design. Japanese locations and sets I think are so well done, and they tell you so much about the characters and the environment that it's happening in. I always talk about how I love on screen, looking at a Japanese apartment, because a Japanese apartment is so specific, not just to Japan, but also to the characters. You learn so much about characters in a Japanese production just by looking at the environments they're being placed in. 

When it comes to If It's With You, you get a sense from Amane's house what his life is like. You get a sense from Ryuji's house, ‘cause Ryuji lost his dad and he is working a lot to help his family. There's a little bit of a chaos to his house, but then there's the corner where his dad's shrine is, and that is perfectly maintained. It is clean and organized and everything. I love the production design on If It's With You.

Ben

If you're coming from American television and you primarily watch Thai BL, you're going to be paying way too much attention to faces when you watch Japanese media. And if you are only watching the faces of Japanese actors, you are likely missing 60% of the show. Space itself is such an important component in the way the Japanese construct their stories. 

I talked about this in other episodes about how they very much believe in the foreground, middle ground, background, all having different elements of active storytelling. If It's With You is probably one of the better examples of this phenomenon this year, primarily because it's so short. MBS was able to spend their money in a really effective way. There's so much to observe in the way their hair is styled, the clothing, the lighting in the scene. Someone wrote about the way the light is used in the confession scene Amani has when he runs away. 

You have to pay attention to more than just dialogue and the expression of strong emotion on an actor's face when you're going to watch Japanese media, or generally any media from a country other than your own, because you have to start learning that culture's film language. If It's With You it's a great one to go watch again if you've already watched it to look at these other elements: what the set design, what the costuming, what the hair and makeup, what the lighting, is trying to communicate to you along the way.

NiNi

We didn't really talk about the hair and makeup, particularly on Amane. I thought it was incredibly clever because Amane is kind of portraying this happy go lucky free spirit, and everything about the way his hair is styled, the way he dresses, it's all in service of him putting that face out to the outside. But he is masking. He is a sad boy masking as happy.

Ben

Ha! My favorite type of gay!

NiNi

Let's move on to the winner of the Best Production category.

Ben

Best Production this year again goes to a Thai team. It goes to Dee Hup House, production designer Takanta Kultrakarn and art director Le Phong Phu On for I Feel You Linger in the Air.

[fanfare sound]

I Feel You Linger in the Air, in totality, creates this beautiful vision of what Thailand looked like outside of Bangkok a century ago, and tries to imagine how those people might have used the spaces they existed in and moved around them. And there are a lot of really beautiful details, down to the type of cutlery that's used, the way they use the plates. Obviously, the costuming they wear, but even how they have people sit and move around, the way they create the illusion of space with their locations. 

It's a really excellent piece on every level. It's so rich, and you can feel so much environmental storytelling going on with the location itself. And then there's interesting interplay with the house and the past and the present. It is just so excellently done. It is probably the most visceral show that we got to watch this year. The world that they create feels so believable that you almost feel like you could touch it. 

It's really hard to do that. It is not easy. Congratulations to Dee Hup House, because goddamn.

NiNi

They put their foot in that, no lie.

22:13 - Best Writing

NiNi

Moving on to my main bitch: Best Writing. [laughs] When we're talking about the writing in the story, we're talking about the idea behind the story and setting up the characters; the story itself – that's the structure and the plot and character development. We're talking about screenplay, and then we're talking about script, dialogue, cadence, character voice. All these elements come into the best writing.

Ben

We actually had, like, a little spat [laughs] over awarding this category.

NiNi

Just a little one, not a big one. We ultimately agreed on who the top two were, but we couldn't agree on who was going to be the runner up and who was going to be the winner.

Ben

[laughs] I'll let you talk about the runner up.

NiNi

The runner up for Best Writing is La Pluie [applause sound] written by Fluke Teerapat Lohanan and Tanachot Prapasri. La Pluie is one of the best two, obviously, written stories of the entire year. There is no flab to that story. That story is written intensely. The way that they build out the world and the characters, the way that they set up the premise, the words that are put in the characters’ mouths, the way that the characters are developed, the fact that it allows characters to be wrong without being villains. 

In terms of not just fiction, but genre fiction, which is incredibly hard to write, it is incredibly difficult to write genre fiction that does not feel…made-up. Of course, all fiction is made-up, but genre fiction there has to be an element of believability to it. You have to sell the idea in such a way that it feels real. It feels like something that could happen. The way that La Pluie sets up its world in the writing, the concept of this rain deafness phenomenon feels like a real thing that could happen in the world. 

So you've set up the genre fiction side of it, and then onto that you add basically a retooling of the entire idea of romantic fiction. It's so cleverly done. It's like they looked at—and this is very clear, I mean it's even in the show—it's like they looked at Nora Roberts romance and said, “We're gonna take this to the next level. We're gonna show you what this would play out like if we did it in the real world, and then we're going to subvert that. We're going to twist it. We're going to turn it on its head. But it's still gonna be recognizable as romance.” It is some of the cleanest, deftest writing that I've seen in a while.

Ben

La Pluie is one of the best written shows of the year because you can refer to specific episodes, start talking about a couple of details, and the audience will be right back there. La Pluie has less than 15 seconds of recap going into each of their episodes. That's how strong the writing is in that show. Each episode is covering specific ground that they don't really need to do much other than remind you with a couple of shots where we left off, and you can go, “Oh, okay, yeah,” and we're right back in it. 

I don't want to gush about La Pluie too much. I have much to say about La Pluie. I will not go on at length here. 

The winner for Best Writing of this year goes to MAME, May Orawan Vichayawannakul for Wedding Plan. [fanfare sound] I was not expecting to be awarding MAME this year.

NiNi

Nobody was, bestie.

Ben

But I wanted to award Wedding Plan because I think MAME did a good job deconstructing and playing around with the types of dynamics she likes to put with her characters, and then telling a genuinely queer story within the structures of BL. I think that that is an incredibly impressive feat. It can't be overstated how complete Wedding Plan feels as a work. I have no lingering questions about the cast of characters in the show. This show was not being greedy with the audience's attention and hoping to milk us for more after the fact. They just sat down and told a really compelling story about what it means to try and work your way out of the closet in the least destructive way possible. Excellent job.

27:17 - Best Direction

NiNi 

This is the Best Direction award. This is awarded for overall vision, filmmaking style, and visual impact, so photography, cinematography, shot selection, editing, directing, actor movement and expressions. These are all the elements that go into the best direction criteria. 

Our runner up goes to Ishibashi Yuho, who directed Our Dining Table and Tokyo in April is… 

[applause sound]

So the directing team here is Ishibashi Yuho, who is the main director on Our Dining Table. They directed along with Iizuka Kashou and Kamimura Naho, the DP or cinematographer is Hayasaka Shin. The editor is Takahashi Masakazu. On Tokyo in April is… Ishibashi Yuho, directed with Honda Daisuke and Kishida Masayoshi. The DP is Kato Taishi. The editor is Ohashi Masakazu.

Japanese direction is so specific. It comes from a very theatrical tradition, and sometimes I find that a little hard to digest depending on the strength of the actors, but generally I tend to like it. The theatricality to the direction, the fact that the set is seen sort of as a stage, and the actors enter and exit and move around in the space. It requires an understanding and awareness of space, both on the part of the actors and definitely on the part of the director because what you then put in front of the camera, because the camera, it moves, yes. But when you're talking about Japanese direction, camera is largely static, and everything else is moving within the frame. 

Ben 

You’re not really watching Japanese media until you start noticing that they're slowly zooming in on a character and that as a character is slowly excluded from the frame, they are not part of the current emotional beat that we're on. 

NiNi 

You're right, when the camera does move, it doesn't tend to be moving across the shot, but sort of in and out. So maybe the camera is zooming, or maybe there's some kind of dolly movement happening, but the dolly movement is going for depth into the scene rather than moving across the scene. 

It is so fascinating, and I think that Ishibashi Yuho is sort of a master of it. Thinking about the direction at Our Dining Table, the way that she shoots the Ueda house. How you get an understanding of the space inside the Ueda house without the camera moving around very much, but where the camera is placed becomes important, and what the camera focuses in on becomes important. And then how those shots are pulled together become important. 

Ben 

I really hope we get to see her doing some more stuff in genre because I like where her priorities are. Not only is she really good at running a set and creating projects that are really easy to grok and connect to, she seems to care about the way gay men are presented in her work, and I really appreciate that. 

NiNi 

Congratulations to our runner up. 

Ben, why don't you tell us who our winner is? 

Ben 

The winner for Best Direction this year goes to Baek Inu and Werner DuPlessis for The Eighth Sense. [fanfare sound] Director of Photography Yang Gyunsang, edited by Werner DuPlessis. 

This project was a Korean and German team up, and it was unlike much of what we had watched from Korean BL in the last couple of years. They very much leaned into, like a—what’s the German term for their coming of age films? 

NiNi 

Bildungsroman.

Ben 

It feels a whole lot like that, but it also feels like a moody Park Chan-wook film [laughs] the whole time, too. It was really fascinating watching these guys blend their styles together, and bring out these really strong performances and a lot of unknowns. There's a lot—like, I'm just sitting here. I'm thinking about the frenetic filming of episode 6. I'm thinking about the way they filmed Jae Won losing it and running to sock Tae Hyung, the way they used the framing of perspective when Ji Hyun sees whatever that nasty girl’s name was [laughs] kissing Jae Won in front of the bar. It's really good. 

NiNi 

I concur, it is really good, and the filmmaking...I mean, some of the things that they were able to do. I think there was an entire second unit that just handled the surfing scenes. And those scenes are truly impressive, the way that the water work was shot, it mimicked the sense of being on the waves—that feeling of never being entirely stable and occasionally getting knocked over. And it still captured the beauty of being in the sea. 

And then, like you said, some of the frenetic filmmaking around Jae Won's mental state, and how that episode that you got so pissed [laughs] with everybody else about, about them saying that it wasn't real, but it felt dreamlike for a reason because Jae Won was probably, like, tits up out his mind on some kind of drugs, maybe, so it feels surreal. The way that the episode after the accident, when they come back to school and you don't know what exactly happened, and the whole thing is sort of tinged in this subdued, almost monochrome coloring until you find out what happens. And then the color slowly starts coming back to the show. 

It's very, very well executed from a direction perspective, the way that the camera moves, the way that the actors are directed, the way that the show is edited together, just every aspect of the visual filmmaking. The overall vision for the show is coherent, it's cohesive, it's comprehensive, and it's damn good. 

Best Direction 2023 VIIB award goes to The Eighth Sense. Baek Inu and Werner DuPlessis. 

34:19 - Outro

NiNi

We have come to the end of our Immortal Technique VIIB Award segment. Next up tomorrow, if I have edited this correctly—always the caveat—we will be looking at our Top Tings. All of the top tops, the highest highs, of the BL for 2023. 

So until then, we out. Say “bye” to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

#podcast #lgbtq #the viib awards #thai bl #bl series #winter series #japanese bl #korean bl #the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #Spotify

[the-conversation-pod]

The VIIB Awards 2024: Ship Ahoy!

Continuing with Part 2 of 5 of the Very Important Internet BL Awards, we are handing out our awards for shipping today!

We will be awarding our Best Ghost Ship, Best Friendship, Best Side Ship, and Best Main Ship.

Join us today and for the rest of the week as we continue tomorrow with Immortal Technique. Tell us your winners in the notes!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:23 - Introduction 02:19 - Interlude: Mr. Darcy proposes - Pride and Prejudice (1995) 03:19 - Best Ghost Ship 07:11 - Best Friendship 12:10 - Best Side Ship 21:10 - Best Main Ship 27:49 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

[fanfare sound]

01:23 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back. 

Yesterday, hopefully, you heard the Acting episode. Today we're talking about shipping. BL is powered purely by people's desire to ship these people with each other, so we're gonna acknowledge it and hand out some awards.

NiNi

Our Ship Awards are character awards, because we are simps, but we are not creeps. They are given out to the pairs that worked really, really well. They have got real power to drive enjoyment in the story. 

We've got four categories here: Best Ghost Ship, Best Friendship, Best Side Ship—which is becoming a little bit of a tradition that Ben and I battle this one out on the show—and of course, Best Main Ship.

02:19 - Interlude: Mr. Darcy proposes - Pride and Prejudice (1995)

“In vain I have struggled. It will not do! My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. In declaring myself thus I'm fully aware that I will be going expressly against the wishes of my family, my friends, and, I hardly need add, my own better judgment.

“The relative situation of our families is such that any alliance between us must be regarded as a highly reprehensible connection. Indeed as a rational man I cannot but regard it as such myself, but it cannot be helped. Almost from the earliest moments of our acquaintance I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard, which despite all my struggles has overcome every rational objection. And I beg you, most fervently, to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife.”

03:19 - Best Ghost Ship

NiNi

Let's start with Best Ghost Ship and in my notes, in terms of describing the best ghost ship, I just have in all caps: SHOW US THE FOOTAGE YOU COWARDS. [laughs] Best Ghost Ship is awarding a ship that's not a canon ship—it's not really a ship, but it should have been. 

I'm gonna kick us off with my runner up here, and that's gonna go to Sam and Jim from GAP the series. 

[applause sound]

We all love Sam and Mon—yes, it was very great. It was a great time. Fantastic. But Jim, married and pregnant, and ready to risk it all if Sam just says, “Yeah, okay, we're doing this.” She'll be like, “What husband? What baby?” [laughs]

Jim, played by Looknam Orntara, and Sam, played by Freen Sarocha. I just thoroughly enjoyed that little runner of Jim just giving slight indications that, yeah, she would absolutely risk it all for Sam, up to and including after Sam not-so-accidentally slaps her at her birthday party. And she goes to Jim's house to make up with her, and she just starts kissing on her! Like, she kisses her cheek, and then she kisses her shoulder, and Jim's gettin’ a little thrill over there. And I'm just like, I would like to see it. 

So the runner up for Best Ghost Ship is going to be Sam and Jim from GAP the series. So who is our winner for the Best Ghost Ship, Ben?

Ben

They're maybe not even a ghost ship. They're probably just in the background. Our winner for this year goes to Bow and Kung from La Pluie. 

[fanfare sound]

Bow came on that trip with Saengtai on a mission, and she had a side objective. She was like, “I'm gonna get my boy off his ass and into bed with Patts properly. And also, I'm gonna fuck somebody on this trip.” 

Now, she had her sights set on one of the other vets when they started this out, and she was beefing with Kung at first thinking that girl was too extra, and she was pissing about with her. But by the end of that trip they’re hugging each other, crying together, holding hands, dancing together. As far as I'm concerned, it happened.

NiNi

It absolutely happened as far as I'm concerned. And, like, the funniest part of that is that when they get there, Kung is speaking in this really annoying voice and this really annoying style of talking. Bow just wants to strangle her the entire time she's doing that. She's doing this kind of—not a baby voice—but, like, this fake calm, very serene type of aura that she's giving off. 

And literally she shares a room with Bow, and the very next day she talkin’ different. [laughs] She and Bow holdin’ hands in the background. Listen, these two fucked nasty and you can't convince me otherwise.

Ben

They definitely did. We don't need to debate it.

NiNi

Congratulations, Bow and Kung, the winners of the Best Ghost Ship award.

07:11 - Best Friendship

NiNi

So we're going to move on to my favorite ship: Friendship. 

For me, friendship is where it's at when it comes to these stories. Yes, we all love the romantic relationships. They're all lovely and “ooh” we coo about it. But friendship and community, and especially queer friendship and community, are super, super important. I feel all rosy inside when I think about people building community and being friends and found family with each other. 

The runner up for best friendship: The Band Chinzhilla from My School President. 

[applause sound]

I call these boys a lovely bunch of coconuts, and I stand by it. These boys are super dumb. They're such losers, but they 1000% have each other's backs. Even when they fight, they can't maintain it for long. They fight, and then they cry it out, and they hug each other, and they go on. 

It reminded me, watching these boys, of what it was like to be young and have a group of friends, you just shooting the shit and just being nonsensical at all times. Getting in trouble together, looking out for each other. It made me feel warm and glowy inside, and that is why Chinzhilla is my runner up for Best Friendship. 

Ben, what does the Best Friendship category mean to you, and who are our winners for Best Friendship?

Ben

One of the most important things about a good romance is that the people who are going to be together, I think, have the kind of support network that you believe that they can make it. If you're gonna have a really effective long-term relationship to root for, people have got to have people who are in their corner who have their backs. And for me, I'm always going to be drawn to queer friendship in this award. I think last year we gave it to the Secret Crush on You quartet.

NiNi

Yes, we did.

Ben

This year we are giving it to Sailom and Yiwa from Wedding Plan. 

[fanfare sound]

And if you bitches thought I was done talking about this fucking show [laughs and then begins singsong] you got another thing comin’. 

[NiNi laughs]

I will continue to state plainly and clearly that Wedding Plan the series does not function without the relationship between these two. That is so rare to say in any sort of romantic drama. Sailom’s entire motivation is grounded in his loyalty to Yiwa, and freeing her from the confines of heteronormativity in her family. The reason he's lying, the reason he's playing all these games, the reason why he doesn't tell Nuea what maybe needs to be said is because he is loyal to his friend, and her safety is more important to him than his own happiness. 

These two have each other's back; they are the most ride-or-die. Sailom was prepared to sacrifice his own needs and desires to make sure that Yiwa and Marine were safe and sheltered. And when it was made abundantly clear that faking it with Lom was not going to suffice, Yiwa was like, “Fine, I'll be your villain.” She turns around and gives to Lom what he was trying to give her by becoming the villain in the story, by being the girl who left him at the altar to run off with some woman and go to England of all places. These two understand each other and they love each other in a way that defines the entire show. I don't know a better friendship.

NiNi

I have to concur. I get incredibly emotional thinking about that, because that's love. That's love in its purest form. 

So our winner of the 2023 VIIB Award for Best Friendship is Sailom and Yiwa from Wedding Plan. Plate in the mail.

12:10 - Best Side Ship

NiNi 

And now [rubs hands together] for the main event. Best Side Ship, our annual Battle Royale, even though this is only the 2nd Annual VIIB Awards, it's still annual. 

So last year, Ben and I could not come to an accord on side ship because we had two very different conceptions of what the purpose of a side ship is and how a side ship should operate in a show. 

Ben 

NiNi’s position was the best side ship for her is the pair that is so compelling that she would kind of like to see what the show looks like if we focus on them instead and make the mains sides for them. I work from the perspective of if we're gonna have a side ship, I like for them to have thematic resonance with the main ship. 

NiNi 

In the end, Ben convinced me and I bowed to his argument about side ships. 

Ben 

So our contenders this evening are: presented from NiNi, Tien and Lomfon from La Pluie. And presented by me, Marine and Yiwa from Wedding Plan. 

NiNi 

Ben you go first, tell us why Marine and Yiwa? 

Ben 

Wedding Plan is about the choice to present straight and do your own thing on the side. The difficulties that Lom and Nuea may face are made real by observing Marine and Yiwa. The two of them love each other, they’re having a great time, but they're under constant surveillance. People take pictures of them in public and send it to Yiwa’s mom and say “What's going on with her and her friend?” Yiwa's mom goes to Marine’s house and lays hands on her. We can see that Marine is suffering for being in the closet with Yiwa. She loves Yiwa. She's made her choice. She understands what she gave up and weighed it against what she's gained, and she chooses that. She allows us to consider what Namnuea may be giving up because he is a loved, self actualized gay man who has the total support of his entire network. What is he stepping into if he chooses to be with Lom? Marine and the relationship that she has with Yiwa helps us understand the relationship challenges Nuea is going to face if he chooses to be with a rich, closeted man. 

NiNi 

I'm going to make my argument for Tien and Lomfon. I've described La Pluie as being about an atheist, an apostate, an agnostic, and a true believer. Tien and Lomfon are the atheist and the true believer who have to come to an accord about what beliefs they're going to share. The thematic resonance of Tien and Lomfon working that out alongside Patts and Tai working out what they're gonna believe or not believe. I just liked watching the interplay of those two couples and how they contend with the soulmate connection tied to the rain deafness as an article of faith. Even though they don't drive narrative to the extent that Marine and Yiwa do, I think that they are critical to understanding where La Pluie wants you to land on this theme of soulmates, and they are the best side ship for that reason. 

Ben 

The argument I could make for them is that they give us an opportunity to look at a relationship forming in the conceits of this world without the pressures and expectations of rain deafness on their dynamic. The struggle I have with Lomfon and Tien is Lomfon turns to Tien’s feelings really late, and so it's difficult for me to connect with where Lomfon decided to start caring about Tien properly and looking at him. For Tien, I kind of get his attraction to Lomfon because he and Lomfon fight a bunch, and Tien clearly seems to get off on some of that, but I'm less certain when it comes to Lomfon because he's just so fucking dense for most of the show, and he's so fucking rude!

NiNi 

He is rude, but I don't think he's as dense as you'd say. He is picking up what's happening between him and Tien. He's just scrupulously ignoring it in favor of his headcanon, basically, that he is meant to be with Saengtai. I don't feel like Lomfon is confused so much as stubborn. 

Ben 

I don't think I was invested in the stakes of whether or not the two of them would make it. Like, I was totally okay with Tien not being with Lomfon. 

NiNi 

I was not! [laughs]

Okay, shallow reasons. 

Ben 

Okay. All right. 

NiNi 

Tien and Lomfon’s kiss is way better than Yiwa [laughs] and Marine’s.

Ben 

And now the truth comes out, besties. [both laugh] And here it is. 

NiNi 

We’re trying to find a point of separation so we can pick a winner. 

Ben 

The better kissers are clearly Suar and Copter. 

NiNi 

Suar put whole pussy in to that kiss. This is gonna be a rough one ‘cause I feel like neither of us is ready to capitulate. 

Ben 

I do think that both of these pairs have important thematic resonance with the core themes of both shows. I think we have to decide if we're gonna award the Wedding Plan pair for queer reasons or if we're gonna award the La Pluie pair for really strong romantic deconstruction themes. Because a big part of La Pluie was unpacking the expectation of romance itself. 

NiNi 

In that regard, then. Tien and Lomfon are not as deeply integrated into the mission of La Pluie as Marine and Yiwa are integrated into the mission of Wedding Plan. What Tien and Lomfon say about romance is not as much as what Marine and Yiwa say about performance of heteronormativity and the importance of queer family. 

Ben 

[sigh] Ah, man, difficult. 

NiNi 

It is difficult, but since this is a BL podcast, queer reasons do win out over romance reasons every time. So Tien and Lomfon are our runners up. I'm going to send them a koozie and a saucer because they deserve.

Ben 

[laughs] We gotta do a better job with the paraphernalia for these awards. 

NiNi 

The koozie just seems disrespectful, we gotta come up with something else. 

Ben 

It really does. 

NiNi 

There's, like, nothing distinguished about a koozie. 

Ben 

We're just gonna give them their own plate, there’ll just be different materials. 

NiNi 

Okay, that's fine. We can work with that. 

And the winner of the Best Side Ship plate is gonna be Yiwa and Marine from Wedding Plan. Congratulations, girls. 

Ben 

We can finally move past the side ship struggle we have every year. I really hope this is not a thing next year. I need everyone making BL to look into the camera right now. Don't put us through this again in 2024. [laughs] I want a clear winner going into this year. Get it together, everyone. 

NiNi 

I don't know. I kind of enjoy it [laughs].

21:10 - Best Main Ship

NiNi 

Moving on to our final award of this segment and that is the Best Main Ship. The criteria for awarding the best main ship: listen, the show is about them, do I buy their love story?

So the runner up for best main ship is Kawi and Pisaeng from Be My Favorite. [applause sound] I think I shocked myself, maybe, a little bit with this one. 

Ben 

You shocked yourself. You did not shock me. [laughs] I'm like, looking at this list—those two? Of course, okay. 

NiNi 

I feel like when it comes to a love story that really resonated with me, Be My Favorite was one of the high points. The way that it utilized its time travel conceit to build the love story, the way that it built the love story between Kawi and Pisaeng. Who Kawi is, who Pisaeng is, all the things that have happened to them and bring them together. And in terms of a ship, two characters whose love story I 100% buy just as it has been presented on screen, to me that was Kawi and Pisaeng. 

Ben 

With all the things you watched this year and the intense swooning you had for other couples this year, I'm curious that this was the couple you went to bat for when we had to hash this out. 

NiNi 

I surprised myself a little, too. 

Ben 

I was expecting like Yai and Jom as the ones you really wanted to go for. 

NiNi 

With everybody else, there's something. There's something that I felt was missing or there's something that I had to sort of reconstruct in my head as we went along. There's something that I probably wasn't 100% sold on. But when it came to these two, I really genuinely, in terms of how their story was portrayed, really, genuinely had no notes. If I had to point to, like, a specific thing, I would point to the back end of the show, and particularly that sequence of Pisaeng time traveling and how it flips their dynamic a little bit. The way that that was handled felt so honest to the characters as presented, showing how Kawi had grown, showing how Pisaeng had come to terms with himself, showing that they had settled into each other in a particular kind of way, like I believed that for the two of them this is it, no matter what. 

So who is the winner of our best main ship for 2023, Ben? 

Ben 

Our winner of Best Main Ship this year goes to Han Baram and Im Hantae from Sing My Crush. 

[fanfare sound]

What stands out for me with Im Hantae is he has to contend with, first, having to accept that the devotion that he's been pouring onto Han Baram for years was potentially mildly harmful to Han Baram because Han Baram had a crush on him the whole time. He has to recognize Han  Baram’s feelings and find a way to match that in himself. He has to also support Han Baram through a very difficult professional challenge that Han Baram keeps abandoning him during. And he gets mad at Han Baram in a way that is 100% justified. 

The boxing scene between the two of them is one of my favorite scenes of the year, and I think there's really something special about a couple who give each other permission to be angry sometimes. Particularly in a genre about men being with men, I think it is really important that we accept and understand that the fact that men get angry is not a character flaw or failing. I love the way the show made that simultaneously really physical, but also seemingly gentle. 

You can feel the whole time how important these two characters are to each other, and it is really rare in BL that friends to lovers is done at all, let alone well. As the moody gay of our duo, I'm gonna give it to friends to lovers almost any year when it's handled this well, because that, for me, in a lot of ways is the primary gay angst. Even if you grew up in ideal circumstances where people weren't being homophobic to you, statistically you're gonna like a lot of straight boys. And it's hard if you didn't know about queerness in yourself to suddenly have to respond to that and recognize that and accept that that's going to alter, maybe, the way you thought your life was gonna go. That's handled well in this show. I really like that for Im Hantae, what mattered most to him was his devotion to Han Baram, and I like that their relationship is constructed by the show as something mutually beneficial for both of them. 

NiNi 

And yes, that virtuous circle, that upward spiral that we talk about, that I think is part of the best couples. 

The winner of the Best Main Ship for 2023 is Han Baram and Im Hantae from Sing My Crush. Congratulations, boys! Plates are in the mail.

27:49 - Outro

Ben 

Look at Krist, getting a plate in 2023!

NiNi 

Good for him. Nobody saw that coming. Like, nobody. 

That is going to wrap us up on the Ships Ahoy! segment of the 2023 VIIB Awards. Next up tomorrow, again, if the editing has happened the way that it's supposed to—

Ben 

Stop qualifying, just say it. be brave, be bold about it: Tomorrow! 

NiNi 

Tomorrow. Okay, tomorrow we will be moving into our technical awards. Our Immortal Technique episode. So we're going to be awarding, as Ben said, all the people that you never get to see, but who make the shows what they are. 

We always love these awards. We get to get super nerdy and deep in the weeds. That's probably the episode that we looked forward to all of this year and we're going to read out a bunch of names of people that you've never heard of, so look forward to that. 

Until then, we out. Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

#podcast #lgbtq #the viib awards #thai bl #bl series #gl series #korean bl #the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #winter series #season 5

[the-conversation-pod]

The VIIB Awards 2024: Acting!

It's time for the second annual Very Important Internet BL Awards!

It's been a year since we started this podcast, and we wanted to return to the concept that we opened with. This year, since we've already spoken about all of the shows, we will just be handing out awards. Expect to see five different episodes from us in the coming days, covering:

Acting

Ships

Immortal Technique

Top Tings

Special Class Awards (Outstanding Queer Narratives)

We're excited for you to join us for the important gay tradition: disagreeing with awards show outcomes!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:23 - Introduction 04:43 - Interlude: Norma’s ready for her close-up - Sunset Boulevard (1950) 05:29 - Rising Star 08:59 - Best Cast 12:49 - Best Pair 17:03 - Best Actor 19:57 - Best Acted Scene 24:10 - Best Line 28:43 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

[fanfare sound]

01:23 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back.

NiNi

It's the VIIB Awards, bitches!

Ben

It has been so long since we did this. We have recorded so much since we did the VIIB Awards on a whim a year ago.

NiNi

By my count, we have done 32 episodes and this will be episode 33.

Ben

That means we've spoken about somewhere between 40 and 50 shows this year. Probably more.

NiNi

Hoo. That's like three times as many as I usually watch.

Ben

That's about what I watch. [laughs] All right, real shit, I actually did the math last night when we were prepping for this. I've completed, like…75 BLs this year.

NiNi

You're actually down from last year. That's quite impressive. You did manage to fulfill your promise to watch a little bit less.

Ben

My ‘23 dropped count is 19.

NiNi

I am proud of you, bestie. Good job.

Ben

But, that means like my total engagement is like around ninety-goddamn-two, which is not an improvement—[laughs] basically par.

NiNi

Listen, sometimes you just have to let go, let flow. But we're not here to talk about the things you dropped because they were bad. We're here to celebrate the best of BL for 2023.

Ben

Let's give the people who might be new to us an overview of what to expect over the next couple of releases from us, since the VIIB Awards might be new for some of them.

NiNi

So we are just gonna talk about the best of BL for 2023. We're going to send our winners plates. Did we ever decide what was gonna be on the plates that we were sending our winners?

Ben

I don't know. It's definitely a plate of some sort—that feels correct for us.

NiNi

Normally we’d say oh, it would be an invite to the cookout, but we don't give those out just like that.

Ben

We do not. The format of the VIIB Awards is we start with the actors, and then we move into the work that they're doing, and then the people supporting their work, and then the total production itself. So the first outing is going to be the Acting Awards. The next outing will be the Ship Awards. The third will be what we call Immortal Technique, where we talk about all the people who you never see who make this shit work. And then we award all the top things. And then we'll do a little bit of wrap up, because it's never us if we don't put a little extra on it.

NiNi

That extra is usually our Special Class Awards. Last year we only gave out two Special Class Awards. This year we have rather a few more. 

By the way, you saying ‘top things?’ Just, hilarious, because it is the top tings.

Ben

I don't want to try and mimic your accent. It feels mean.

[both laugh]

NiNi

Top tings! That's what we doin’. Anyway, so tonight we are on actors, so let's take it away.

04:43 - Interlude: Norma’s ready for her close-up - Sunset Boulevard (1950)

“Mr. DeMille, do you mind if I say a few words? Thank you. I just want to tell you all how happy I am to be back in the studio, making a picture again! You don't know how much I've missed all of you. And I promise you I’ll never desert you again because after Salome we’ll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life. It always will be. There’s nothing else. Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!… All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

05:29 - Rising Star

NiNi

So our first category is Rising Star, and the Rising Star award goes to an actor in their first main role who is very clearly going places. 

Ben, who's our runner-up?

Ben

Let's talk about last year. So, last year the winner of this award was NuNew Chawarin for the work he did on Cutie Pie, and the musical work he did—most notably the work he did on Khun Chai. 

This year, we focused on their role in the show itself and some of the pieces moving around them, which tells us a lot about people's belief in them. So our runner up for this year is Oh Jun Tae [applause sound] for The Eighth Sense in his role of Kim Ji Hyun.

In engaging with some of the behind-the-scenes content, we learned that he was the first person who was cast, and they built a lot of the cast around their compatibility with him—and that's a lot of burden to put on a young actor. After watching the show, I completely understand. Because a lot of the times, these stories are constructed in a way for the audience to project onto the protagonist, so they try to make them a cipher as much as possible. And I think he brings a lot of specific personality to this character in playing an otherwise sort of lovable country kid in the big city. I think he does a really stellar job and I've been thinking about him and his performance over the whole year. 

NiNi

So, Oh Jun Taek is our runner up for Rising Star and well-deserved, I think. 

So, who beat him? I'll tell you who beat him. Our Rising Star for 2023 is Fourth Nattawat. 

[fanfare sound]

Come on, was it going to be anybody else? Fourth took on two roles this year: Gun in My School President and Li Ming in Moonlight Chicken, and crushed them both. Two very different boys with two very different characters, I think. He put a lot of work in and it shows on screen. 

Seriously, guys, if you haven't seen Moonlight Chicken, if you haven't seen My School President, I suggest you watch them both and just kind of marvel at this kid. He's so talented. I haven't seen raw talent like that for a while. He is our rising star.

Ben

It also factors into how much we've seen him since then. You can feel how impactful his debut was. GMMTV's clearly put a lot of resources behind that kid right now. I was particularly impressed by the reveal that Aof allowed Fourth to choose his partner. I remain impressed with the self-awareness that went into choosing Gemini. I genuinely hope that he has a very good 2024.

NiNi

Congratulations, Fourth, our Rising Star VIIB Award Winner for 2023. You get a plate.

08:59 - Best Cast

NiNi 

Our next award is the Best Cast Award. This is a group award that is given to a cast where they're all individually talented, but as a whole, the cast is greater than the sum of their individual parts. I'm going to go first this time with our runner up. I fought for and won the opportunity to give the runner up to the cast of Only Friends. 

[applause sound]

Now, you would have heard us earlier in this season basically pan Only Friends. It wasn't great. However, what was phenomenal about Only Friends was the cast. All the acting, how the cast worked together, the individual characters. I think that the Only Friends cast deserved a chance at the best cast award—and they didn't win, but they came damn close. 

So, Khaotung, First, Force, Book, Mark, and Neo. To me, they are those characters. What they put into that show is the best stuff that came out of that show. So, for me, yeah, they're our Runner Up Best cast: the Only Friends cast. 

So who is our winner for Best Cast, Ben? 

Ben 

The winner for best cast this year goes to Our Dining Table. 

[fanfare sound]

Inukai Atsuhiro, Iijima Hiroki, Maeyama Kuuga, and Harada Ryuji in particular. I think that the best cast award goes to a group that collectively elevates the work that they're in. It's often easy to build around one really strong actor, but everyone is really talented in the small cast of Our Dining Table, and they make the debut for a really young actor in Maeyama Kuuga as enjoyable as possible. 

Seeing the work that they did behind the scenes to adjust their performances to accommodate him, to let him lead in the scenes because he at least understood the job—and what they were trying to accomplish in the scene—and working around him. You don't see it much in the final product of the show, but you can feel the benefit of it because of how effortless the chemistry between the cast itself is. 

It's really important for me in a romance that also features family dynamics that the family dynamics honestly outperform the romantic dynamics, and this cast delivers at every level in this. I just really, truly love the collective performance of this cast in Our Dining Table, from the way Inukai and Iijima work with each other to build out this really earnest building relationship between the two of them, to the way they work with Maeyama Kuuga as Tane, to the way Papa Ueda ends up supporting the romance going on between them—and giving them the pushes they need when the two of them have their heads up their asses about each other. 

It was really excellent and it's one of the best examples of a cast consistently working well together. That is our winner for Best Cast for 2023. We will be sending you all a plate. 

12:49 - Best Pair

NiNi 

Moving on to our next award: Best Pair. This goes to, as before in the Best Cast, people who are individually talented, but also as a pair they are greater than the sum of their individual parts. 

So Ben, who is our runner up for Best Pair? 

Ben 

Our runner up this year goes to Bright Rapheephong and Nonkul Chanon [applause sound] for their work in I Feel You Linger in the Air, which may surprise some of you who listened to our [laughs] I Feel You Linger in the Air episode, but I genuinely liked the work the two of these guys did together. 

Tee is not the director who I think pulls a really great romantic performance out of people, because I feel like a lot of his energies are directed elsewhere. His best work comes from actors who are really good at building those emotions between each other, and who understand the vision that they're trying to accomplish. 

Because I engage with behind the scenes content and watch their interviews and see the prep they do ahead of time, Bright and Nonkul are one of the standouts of the year. They have a very difficult job to do in dealing with the power dynamics of their characters, the fantastical elements between them, and—honestly—difficulties with the way this particular work was adapted. I was incredibly impressed by them. The two of them were extremely compelling and I think the two of them capture some of the best couple chemistry we got to see this year, in terms of feeling like two men who were in an active, developing and passionate relationship with each other. 

NiNi 

Fantastic work by Bright Rapheephong and Nonkul Chanon, but the winner of the Best Pair Award this year goes to Hagiwara Riku and Yagi Yusei [fanfare sound] for Utsukushii Kare 2 and Utsukushii Kare: Eternal. 

Let me tell y’all, nobody else could have played this couple like these two together. There is something about Hira and Kiyoi that just fits these two. There's something about the dynamic there that they have worked out as actors to play Hira and Kiyoi in the way that they do. To me they are Hira and Kiyoi and that works, not just because of the actors individually, but how they are interacting. 

You and I spoke a bit in the spring about how it was clear that Yagi had upped his game, and part of him upping his game was to match—to pace—with Hagiwara Riku, and how much working with Hagiwara Riku helped Yagi Yusei to bring his game up. To me, that's part of being a good acting pair as well: this positive feedback loop, where if one is slightly more experienced or slightly better than the other, that it challenges the other one to up their game. And then it becomes like a virtuous cycle, where they just keep hitting newer and newer heights. 

When it comes to Hagiwara Riku and Yagi Yusei, I think that that was what was achieved with them, because you see the spiral upward from Utsukushii Kare to Utsukushii Kare 2. By the time they hit Eternal it's perfection. So, I am giving it to Hagiwara Riku and Yagi Yusei for Utsukushii Kare 2 and Utsukushii Kare: Eternal. 

Congratulations, your plate is in the mail. 

17:03 - Best Actor

NiNi 

Our next award is Best Actor, and this is really simple. This one goes to the best performance of the year. Our runner up for best actor goes to Inukai Atsuhiro [applause sound] for playing Yutaka in Our Dining Table. 

Now, Inukai is a phenomenal actor—a phenomenal actor. I've seen probably about three or four different Inukai characters, and he's such a chameleon that at first I don't even realize that they're played by the same person. The same person who played Zettai BL, the same person who plays Kei x Yaku, the same person who plays Our Dining Table. To me, that's mind blowing. 

What can I even say about Inukai as Yutaka? The way that he plays Yutaka’s blossoming—his opening up—after he meets Minoru, I can't even describe how real that feels, how real it felt to watch Yutaka blossom like that. I'm not gonna delve too deeply into it because I would just go on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever, because Inukai is just amazing to me. I don't know how he does it. 

Ben 

Okay, our winner for Best Actor of the Year goes to Neo Trai [fanfare sound] for Only Friends. Neo succeeds at doing the rare thing, where he plays a villain character so well, and with so much humanity, that he wins over the audience. 

Boston is set up in Only Friends to just be a fugly slut, to cause problems and be discarded by the narrative. But Neo embodies Boston with so much real that he wins audience sympathy by the end, and many of us felt that the show deeply wronged his character by the way they chose to resolve the angst that he was involved in. It made us question the writing of the show. He makes Boston into such a genuine person that you feel the need to root for him. 

He's extremely talented, and he is one of the bright spots in a show I have a lot of consternation about. So, congratulations, sir. Your plate is in the mail. 

19:57 - Best Acted Scene

NiNi 

Moving on to the next category, which is the Best Acted Scene. My category! Because y'all know I'm the scene bitch. [laughs] 

This is the scene that's burning a hole in your brain. You absolutely can't forget it. It just makes you feral. Makes you wanna chew glass when you think about it. 

The runner up in this category comes from Bed Friend, and it is the scene where King surprises Uea with a birthday cake. 

[applause sound]

The look on James's face when the King character comes up with this cake. So, the way that the scene is set up is that it's Uea’s birthday. Uea has gone home for his birthday and had just the shittiest time. He comes to see King because he's intending basically to fuck the pain away—comes in the door hot. He's like, “Okay, we're gonna do this,” and King takes a step back. He's like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, not that I'm not enjoying this, but are you okay, bruh?” And then he encourages Uea to calm down, to take a bath, and just breeze out—as we say in Trinidad. 

While Uea is in the bath, in comes King with this cake, and just the look on Uea's face—’cause Uea's never had a birthday cake. He has celebrated his birthday by himself with an empty plate with a candle on it. For years, he's never had a birthday cake. King could not have known what the cake would mean to Uea. He couldn't have known. 

So the scene makes me insane and it is carried by the look of awe and wonder on James's face when King brings his cake in for Uea. For me, that's the scene that burns a hole in my brain. Can't stop thinking about it. Makes me want to chew glass of the millions of phenomenal scenes that I watched this year. So that's our runner up scene. 

What is our winner scene, Ben? 

Ben 

For this year, I am awarding Best Acted Scene to the I Feel You Linger in the Air team for the Episode 11 sex scene between Yai and Jom [fanfare sound] that is tinged with grief from the impending doom hovering over them. 

We get a lot of really earnest scenes in BL, of actors just flinging themselves at each other. And that can be a lot of fun, but sometimes it's too frenetic. It doesn't feel like the kind of stuff that happens between two people who know themselves, who really like each other. These two managed to capture a really special kind of eroticism between their characters, and play out some really interesting male-male sexual dynamics—without actually having to do much of an explicit scene—that’s supported really well by the use of intercuts, and other audio, and the music. 

It's an incredible scene that feels unique in that it's sex happening between two men who love each other, who know that there's no way they can stop one of them from dying. And that's not easy to do. So, I Feel You Linger in the Air, congratulations on winning another plate. 

24:10 - Best Line

NiNi 

Our final category in the acting awards is the Best Delivered Line. So this is a new category. We didn't have this category last year. 

Ben 

Before we get into this category, we're gonna have to talk about translation for a bit. One of the real challenges of being English speakers who watch BL is we are fully-reliant on the strength of translation to fully engage with these shows. Subbing in itself is an art form, because the person who gives us the line that we're reading here is probably not the person who wrote the original script. 

I will spoil slightly and say that both of the winners this year are from Korea. I think a big part of why this is so has to do with the fundamentals of the way the Korean language is structured. Like it's a planned language, unlike a lot of the other languages that kind of evolve organically. And the goals that the Korean political and media and economic arms have means that Korea is very involved in trying to make it so that the rest of us watch their stuff. So I think, on average, the likelihood that we'll get a decent translation is higher from Korea than it might be from the other countries that produce BL regularly. 

NiNi 

I think that's an important thing to lay out. Having spent a lot of time reading various translations, particularly of Asian languages, but generally of most languages, you get the understanding of how limited as a language English is, and how many ideas and concepts just simply don't have a good translation into English. 

With that said, the runner up for the best delivered line. Ben, you take this one. 

Ben 

Unsurprisingly, it's from my favorite Korean production of the year, Our Dating Sim, and my favorite boy of the year. From Shin Kitae, “Have you been, well without me?” 

[applause sound]

That line has stuck in my brain the whole year. The way he delivers this line captures the exact kind of desperation that really underlined his character, and the frustration and hurt that he's been holding this whole time—that he's been so brave about. That's why it ends up being our runner up. 

NiNi 

So the winner of this category, the Best Delivered Line of 2023, it's actually a line in response to another line and it's part of a couplet of lines, and it comes from The Eighth Sense. Jae Wan asked Ji Hyun, “Why did you kiss me?” And Ji Hyun said, “To give you trauma.” 

[fanfare sound]

Come on, guys. [laughs] How is that not the best line of the year? Just the way that it was delivered, it was just so sassy. You get the sense throughout the first few episodes of The Eighth Sense that there is this kind of sassy element to Ji Hyun, even though he seems like the scared country mouse. But this is, like, really sassy and flirty. He's been, like, crushing on this dude and getting some current from him, but this is the first indication that something is happening-happening here. And for him to just throw out that sassy little line like I'm going to traumatize you. [laughs]

Ben 

I love that Country Twink so much. 

NiNi 

He basically is like I'm gonna ruin your life and you're gonna like it. I loved it so much. It was so delightful. It has stuck in my head completely, and that is why it wins the VIIB Award 2023 for the Best Delivered Line in all of BL this last year. 

28:43 - Outro

NiNi

We have now awarded our Acting Awards. Next up, tomorrow—should be tomorrow if I'm editing correctly—will be the Ship Awards. Got four ship awards to give out, including our now, we've decided, annual battle royale Best Side Ship. So, look out for that and we'll see you tomorrow. 

That is going to wrap us up on this episode of The Conversation, The VIIB Awards Acting categories. We out. Say “bye” to the people, Ben.

Ben 

Peace.

#podcast #lgbtq #the viib awards #season 5 #winter series #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #bl series #thai bl #japanese bl #korean bl

[the-conversation-pod]

Tens and Chops, Vol. 1 (A Grab Bag Episode)

We gotta clear the decks ahead of the VIIB Awards, so it’s a grab bag episode! Ben, NiNi, and Shan talk a bunch of shows that we couldn’t NOT talk about, and award the fall’s Girl You Tried.

Grab a drink and a snack and join us for one of the most varied episodes we've had on the show.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Introduction 00:01:15 - Kiseki: Dear To Me 00:12:20 - Dangerous Romance 00:26:05 - Love In Translation 00:41:14 - I Cannot Reach You 00:54:43 - My Personal Weatherman 01:07:01 - If It's With You 01:15:38 - Absolute Zero 01:21:05 - My Dear Gangster Oppa 01:33:32 - Middleman's Love 01:49:07 - Final Thoughts, and Girl, You Tried

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Tens and Chops

Ben

And we're back! We've made it to the Grab Bag for this season of The Conversation. We've named this one “Tens and Chops: Volume 1.” I really hope we have a collection of these to do a smash cut off in the future.

NiNi

So looking forward to it. Definitely looking forward to it. Absolutely looking forward to it. I named it Volume 1 for a reason.

Ben

We have nine shows to talk about plus a bonus segment. Because there are nine shows to talk about, we have brought in help for this one. We have brought in our drama expert, Shan, who is with us again.

Shan

Hello people.

NiNi

Ah, that sweet, sweet smell of a great guest. I love it. Okay, all right, let's dive in, people.

Ben

All right. So, Shan, we're finally into the winter. Let's discuss the fall shows as an experience. As you know, I was grumpy as hell coming out of the summer through the fall with the state of BL. 

How are you feeling about all these various shows?

Shan

Your grumpiness was not unfounded. I don't think the fall season was particularly strong. We hit a slump. A lot of shows just flopped right at the end after strong starts, a lot of shows just didn't take off. There were some things that we were really excited about and then when we actually got to them it was…just so fucking disappointing. [laughs]

I think the strong start to the year and some of our expectations for these shows maybe set us up to be a little extra disappointed in how the season went.

Ben

Before we get into all of the shows individually, NiNi, for the sake of our audience, who may want to skip around this episode, please read the list of shows we're about to discuss.

NiNi

[clears throat] Don't mind if I do! So, in this episode we shall be discussing Kiseki: Dear To Me from Taiwan, Dangerous Romance from Thailand, Love In Translation also from Thailand, I Cannot Reach You from Japan, My Personal Weatherman also from Japan, If It's With You also from, you guessed it, Japan, Absolute Zero from Thailand, My Dear Gangsta Oppa from Thailand-ish, and Middleman's Love the most Thai thing I have seen. [laughs]

Ben

All right. So we're going to be here for a while. I hope you grabbed your drinks and a snack.

NiNi

Put us on pause. Go pee, come back. Or you could just take your phone to the bathroom. Whatever you're doing, I'm not judging you.

Ben

I am, don't worry.

[NiNi laughs]

00:04:20 - Kiseki: Dear To Me

NiNi

Alright, let's start with Kiseki. Ben, what is Kiseki about?

Ben

It's about how nothing was learned from HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count, and that once again I have been made to suffer for things I did not do. 

Kiseki: Dear to Me is a Taiwanese BL about a well-performing high school student late in his studies who gets wrapped up in the gang politics of his local area, falls in love with a gangster, and complications ensue? There's a side couple that's also a bunch of gangsters who end up stealing the show.

Shan

[laughs] I was going to say, I'm pretty sure this show is actually about Ai Di, but okay.

Ben

It is a Lin Pei Yu joint, and we were expecting so much more from her, and yet here we are talking about it in the Grab Bag.

NiNi

Mm-mm-mm. So, Shan, come on in here. Give me, like, a word or a short phrase—something pithy—for the audience.

Shan

Hmm… The pithy description of this show? “Chaotic, but in an awesome way.”

NiNi

Interesting…

Ben

I will agree with that. This show was fun as hell to watch when it wasn't enraging for me.

NiNi

[laughs] I don't know. I was watching it and literally losing the thread while I was watching it.

Shan

Your mistake was ever trying to grasp the thread in the first place.

NiNi

You right, you're right. I made a mistake. My bad. I shouldn't have tried. But—[laughs]—the show was clearly trying, so I thought I had to try, too. 

Listen, I often find Taiwanese shows hard to follow, personally, and I know that's a me thing. But it's something about where they choose to start and end their episodes, I think. I lose the thread.

Ben

I do agree with that. I don't think that, at least the BL tradition we've been exposed to, values episodic structure in a way that is recognizable to those of us who are probably grounded in the American sitcom tradition. A lot of their shows, we tend to remember as a whole, not as individual parts, and that did not work very well here. 

You were not the only person struggling from episode to episode remembering what the fuck was going on. I struggled as well. It was difficult watching this show because I didn't really know thematically what the show wanted to be about. While I really liked the work everyone did—I think all of the actors at every level were really dialed in and it was fun for some of the cameos. I will never return to this particular show because this show involves Wayne Song and Huang Chun Chih as gangsters who are rivals with the leads we care about. 

They have Wayne playing this super-violent, kind of out-of-control gang leader who has to die, and he does, and this is a bad choice because it's not like the rest of us fucking forgot about HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count, and then they released a special episode that is just, “By the way, Chun Chih's character was mooning after him the whole time and now he's sad.” Why? Why was this the choice? Have you not learned that we don't want you to kill these guys? Shit!

NiNi

I think definitely the cameos across the board lost me—A, because I don't watch that much Taiwanese BL, so a lot of it was like, “Wait, who's this guy? Who's this guy? Who's this guy? Why are they here? What are they doing?” I recognize a couple of faces from a couple of things, but mostly I was just confused.

Shan

This show was like 50% powered by cameos. That is what kept people excited week over week and talking about the show. Spotting the faces was really fun. 

So, NiNi, as the resident Taiwanese BL apologist around here, you are absolutely correct that it is often hard to follow the story. The writing is always the weakest point. What has always been my favorite thing about the shows we get from Taiwan is that there is a real connection, I think, between the physical stuff, the intimacy work, and the emotions of the characters, and they kind of really nail those relationship dynamics and that kind of character work. 

But the stories—the plots—have always been kind of a mess, even in my favorite Taiwanese BLs? And this one really took the cake. It was all over the place. I could not at any point in this show, find my footing in the plot, or what was supposed to be happening, or why I was supposed to care. 

That didn't really bother me because this is definitely a show that encourages you to just be along for the ride, and kind of react to scenes, and not worry too much about the overarching story. And that worked for me in this show enough that I had a good time. Would I say that it's good or well written? Absolutely not. [laughs] 

And Ben's complaints about the way that they used those actors from Make Our Days Count are absolutely valid. I kind of couldn't believe the audacity, putting Wayne Song in the show just to kill him off.

Ben

Audacity is the right call, bestie. Thank you very much.

Shan

Right, the audacity! Like, it was not a cool thing to do, and they shouldn’t have done it. So those criticisms are completely fair about this show.

NiNi

There are things about this that I absolutely liked. I did enjoy the couples. I enjoyed the unhinged-ness of them, but I couldn't follow their story, so I was just kind of vibing—which, totally my style. And when I was just vibing I was havin’ a good time. 

If I had to score Kiseki: Dear to Me. The couples are great, the story’s a mess. I'd give it a 6 ½.

Ben

Shan?

Shan

I gave it a 7.5, which was probably generous because I just had so much fun watching it, but I can't claim that it is structurally sound.

Ben

Shan, like the rest of MDL, rated this show with her coochie.

NiNi

That is staying in.

[all laugh]

Shan

What did you score it, Ben?

Ben

What do you think I scored it, bestie? 

Shan

I feel like you scored it real low, because you were pissed about Wayne Song. [laughs]

Ben

I was pissed.

NiNi

Ben was definitely offended, so it got a 5 or less.

Shan

Oh yeah, for sure.

Ben

What do you think I gave it?

Shan

3.

Ben

NiNi

5.

Ben

I gave it a 5. We're laughing a little bit, but legitimately that was so upsetting. And your show was stupid! There wasn't even a point to it. It was just shock, and it felt mean, like you're still salty with us about the HIStory franchise. You are not getting above a 5 from me, despite the fact that Louis Chang and Nat Chen were so much fun to watch, and how much I enjoyed the work between Taro Lin and Hsu Kai. I had a great time watching all four of these men and all the people who cameoed in this.

NiNi

Why do you think there was no Tang Yi and Shao Fei?

Ben

Because there's a cash grab for doing HIStory 6: Freed.

Shan

I want HIStory 6: Freed, and I want it fucking yesterday. Where is our show? [Ben laughs]

NiNi

Alright, so Ben gave it a 5. I gave it a 6.5. Shan gave it a very generous 7.5. Somebody do math.

Ben

That's a 6. 

Shan

You can call it a 6.

NiNi

It's a 6 for Kiseki: Dear to Me. Shoving it off, let's move on to the next one, which we are about to trash.

00:12:20 - Dangerous Romance

NiNi

Ben, tell the world about Dangerous Romance.

Shan

Oh, ho ho ho! Here we go!

Ben

Dangerous Romance—[sighs]—is about how a windmill… cannot be powered…without the wind.

[all break down for prolonged laughing fit]

NiNi

Please! I can’t stand your ass! 

Shan

Had to be done.

NiNi

Okay, bring it back, guys. Bring it back.

Ben

Dangerous Romance purports to be an inter class romance set in a high school between a very smart scholarship student who's super poor, because his parents are dead and it’s just him and his older brother, who's kind of irresponsible with money; and a rich kid who's kind of a pompous bully in school—has no valuable skills of any sort to bring to the table. The two of them crossed paths and are drawn to each other. There are things that happen in the show, I guess. Soccer is a big deal, at some point in this. There's very much a repeated High School Musical TROYYY bit that happens multiple times over three episodes.

[NiNi and Shan laugh]

NiNi

Oh, God, you shady bitch. Carry on.

Ben

It's trash. This show was fucking horrible. This show started out being so fucking interesting. There was the whole notion about Kanghan being just a stupid as hell bully, who only had money on his side, who was getting wrecked constantly by Sailom, this very smart, poor kid. 

And then after episode 2, it all went away, and it was about how Kanghan is a sad rich boy whose mom is dead. And so because his mom is dead, his dad just spoils him rotten, and he just wants his dad to treat him like a real boy, or whatever. I don't give a fuck. This show was so fucking trash. 

[NiNi laughs]

Shan, you're a fan of Shameless. Please explain to the people why this show was so offensive to you.

Shan

For the record, I think I dropped this show Week 4, because I was just so fucking pissed [laughs] about what they were doing with Sailom. 

A little background here: I grew up as a poor person—lived in poverty for like the first 20 years of my life. And I have always had a big interest in stories about class disparity, stories about surviving poverty, stories about families that get through those kinds of challenges because I lived it. And so I'm always very interested to see how it's depicted in fiction. So when the show started, I was so thrilled to finally see a Thai BL that seemed to be taking class disparity seriously? That seemed to want to explore what it actually means when a wealthy person and a poor person are kind of thrown together and have to figure out how to get on the same page across their differences. 

Sailom had some really serious shit set up for him. Him and his brother are in really hard times. They're in deep, deep debt. He's working multiple jobs to try to pay off this debt that they've inherited, and he has this fucking rich bitch bully on his ass, causing him problems, fucking with his jobs, fucking with his money, spreading rumors about him, costing him work! 

I think a lot of people who fell for this show maybe forgot—but I sure fucking didn't—that Kang spread rumors that Sailom was a fucking pedophile, and cost him all of his tutoring students. This is not minor shit that they set up at the beginning of this show to explain the adversarial relationship between these two characters. So I expected them to take it seriously. I expected this to be a serious narrative about how those two could get past those conflicts and come together in a romance—which obviously they were going to. But, that's not what we got at all. 

We didn't get a realistic look at what it means to be poor and to be living with a crushing debt that weighs you down every single day. We didn't get a realistic look at the dynamics between somebody who's grown up like Sailom with the experiences that he's had and the issues that he has to carry every single day, and how he might think about someone like Kang and how he might view him with disdain, and with resentment. We didn't get any of that. We didn't get a realistic look at how these two could come past the initial bullying and the initial things that Kang did to fuck with his life and his money. 

This is life-or-death stakes. They showed us that. Him and his brother are actually getting beat because of this debt on a regular basis. This is not a light issue. And so to set up all of that in the first two episodes, and then immediately pivot, by the third episode, to a bog-standard BL with these two just kind of flirtin’ with each other, and doing all the classic tropes, and Sailom apparently just fucking forgetting all the things that Kang did to him because of one isolated moment? 

None of it made any sense to me. I felt like they flipped a switch and changed Sailom's character from episode 2 to 3, and he never came back. I stopped watching the show in episode 4, but I continued to follow the discourse, so I know that the real Sailom never came back. 

I just don't understand what happened with this show. I don't understand how the same writers could have written those initial episodes and that set up and then carried out the show in the way that they did. I actually found it offensive. I am still pissed off about it! You can hear it in my voice, I'm sure! This was not a joke to me. I was very upset with what this show did. It's inexcusable.

Ben

Kill ‘em, bestie. [laughs]

NiNi

Murder them.

For me, the problem—the main problem with the show—was that the show was about Kanghan and it should have been about Sailom. That's really it in a nutshell. If the show was about Sailom, if it was about Sailom being the main character and you getting into Sailom’s head, and seeing Sailom’s life through Sailom’s eyes, and seeing how Sailom deals with his life, then that's the show that I wanted to see. 

You're talking about the serious shit that's going down. Kang literally shows up at Sailom’s house with a gun! Have we forgotten about this?

Ben

After his friend said, “Bruh, I think the whole gun thing is maybe going too far.”

NiNi

None of these characters are consistent. The characters that are set up in the beginning, the ones that you are interested in, the stories that you think, “Okay, this is what they're setting up.” None of that happens. Those characters vanish basically overnight. 

Saifah was set up to be this kind of charming, feckless older brother who can't be relied upon, but Sailom really loves him. He works with old people, and he kind of steals from them, and scams them a little bit. That's an interesting character. And then one day his debt collector sends a new guy, and the new guy is somebody he went to high school with. And I was like, “Well, this is about to be interesting!” [buzzer sound], I was wrong. No, it was not interesting.

Ben

It's really frustrating, because there's actually a fairly decent small plot in the middle of the show where Saifah has schemed his way into working for the same family. He's been dealing with a work related injury, and the grandma pays for some expensive European medicine for him. He doesn't realize this is for him, and he thinks about stealing it and replacing it with a generic. There’s a really interesting moment where he chooses not to steal from them and then learns that it was a gift intended for him, that is this really decent moment in the show which only further pisses me off. 

Every now and then, this show seemed to understand some of the complex dynamics it was about, and then went right back to fuckin’ it up for no reason.

Shan

I think NiNi is right that the main problem was that the show should have been Sailom’s show and instead they made it about Kanghan, and I don't know why they did that. The first two episodes were clearly rooted in Sailom’s story, and that's what really, I think, threw me.

Ben

Chimon is also the older, veteran actor. Why didn't they believe in him? Like, he could have carried this show. I do not know why they decided to lean on Perth. This is the second time this year they have tried to lean on Perth and it has not been a good choice.

NiNi

I think that Perth is a good actor but he needs a strong lead. He's a follow, but he's a good follow if he has a strong lead. Trying to put him in the lead position? He works best when he's pulling off of somebody.

Shan

Mhmm. If they had let Chimon anchor this, and him follow, I agree with you, NiNi.

NiNi

And then why did they even bother View and June? Why did they make them get out of bed?

Ben

Ohh, are we talking about the teacher-student line between View and June? I'm not.

Shan

I'm so glad I was already gone for that! Whew! I don't even want to know.

NiNi

It wasn't even a thing, though!

Ben

I'm not discussing it, I will not.

NiNi

Listen, honestly, the best parts of the show were, A, the first two episodes, B, everything that Euro did? Euro was great. I loved Euro.

Ben

Okay. I will say that. Let us not walk away from this without shouting out Euro. They do not give big boys a lot of love and respect in this field and, Euro. You did good work, sir. You should have been allowed to kiss—which of the twins was in this?

NiNi

I think it was JJ.

Ben

JJ! You should have been allowed to kiss JJ in this show!

NiNi

I also did not hate Marc and Pawin in this. They were not bad.

Ben

They were not good. [laughs]

NiNi

I didn't say they—I said I didn't hate them, and they were not bad.

Shan

Damning with faint praise indeed.

NiNi

And you know how I feel about Pawin!

Ben

The problem with this is, again, like the pieces were there. But, did you know that a windmill—[all laugh]—cannot function without the wind? If you're tired of this bit in the podcast, watch the show!

Shan

You can only imagine the horrors awaiting you.

Ben

There's a class difference between Kanghan—did you know his name means ‘windmill’?—anyway. 

And so there's a class difference between the two of them. And there's a class difference between Nawa, Pawin's character who's rich, and Guy, Marc's character who was poor. They're friends with the other leads. There was a real opportunity to tell a story about, how do these dynamics play out where people mix? There's an egalitarian aspect to all going to the same schooling system together, even if some of you are there by scholarship, or because your mom works for the place in the case of Euro's character Auto. Marc's character Guy, he's probably there on a football related scholarship because he's an athlete. 

Like there's an interesting thing to say here, but they did nothing with it. It is such a waste of all the goddamn talent on this show, and it was a waste of 12 weeks of my life. This show was bad. This show was offensive. And this show was stupid.

All right, ratings.

NiNi

I gave it a…5.

Ben

Shan?

Shan

Well, since I didn't actually finish the show, I didn't give it a formal rating, but y'all should know that it's, like, a 2 in my heart.

Ben

It is a 3 formally from me. I watched the whole fucking thing. It was shit and offensive. You get a 3 for that.

NiNi

So with 2, a 3, and a 5, I think that pulls you down towards the end of 3.5. 

Ben

Oh yeah, it's bad. 

NiNi

It's not good.

Ben

It's a 3. 

Shan

Do not watch it.

Ben

Unless you need to understand that windmills require the wind to function.

NiNi

[Laughs] Oh, no.

Ben

And let's talk about the fucking ending of this trash piece of shit. The tag of this show is these two characters engaged in sex work play where the poor kid is playing an escort who has to take care of his rich client. 

What the absolute fuck was this?

NiNi

I wanted to vomit.

Shan

I actually can't believe that happened. I saw it. I saw the GIFs on Tumblr, and I thought I was having a fucking hallucination or something.

NiNi

Sex work role play…Okay, anyway. So, on that note—

Ben

It's a chop!

Shan

Well that was a definite chop.

NiNi

Chop.

Ben

Three chops. [slams desk] It's over.

[NiNi laughs]

00:26:05 - Love In Translation

Ben 

On to the next show—oh, good, it finally gets better. [laughs]

Shan

This is a good one!

Ben

All right, great. 

NiNi 

The next show on the list, now that we've gotten that out of the way, is Love in Translation. Ben, what is Love in Translation about? 

Ben 

Love in Translation is a workplace BL in which two characters from different backgrounds come together to run a convenience store in Bangkok. One of them's name is Phumjai. He is a Thai national who comes from a seemingly well off family, who is obsessed with an idol named Tammy. He learns that Tammy is interested in picking up a potential partner in Thailand, but she wants that partner to be able to speak Mandarin and she would like for that character to also be an entrepreneur. Seeing that there's a chance here with Tammy, he decides he wants to formally learn Chinese and goes to a, like, small business association meeting or whatever, to see about starting something up. 

Meanwhile, we have Yang Yan Feng, who is a Chinese national who is here to open up a shop in a very specific point because of backstory reasons involving his dad, I guess. The two of these characters cross paths and don't end up liking each other at first, but circumstances come together, and the only Black character in Thai BL this year ends up connecting the two of them and they form a little shop together. Yang agrees to also teach Phumjai Mandarin and flirt with Tammy on his behalf. Very many hijinks ensue, but this show ended up being one of my favorites of the year. 

Shan, you ended up really enjoying this show. Tell us the things you liked about the show in the early weeks when we were deciding whether or not we needed to give ourselves La Pluie-level brainrot over it to convince people to watch it. 

Shan 

It ended up being really enjoyable. I was a little bit more skeptical going in than Ben. I'm not as inclined to sitcom style in BL as Ben is. Like, I think you kind of find it very comforting and familiar, whereas I kind of feel it's sometimes an awkward match of styles, and so I wasn't quite as convinced going in that I was gonna love it. But I enjoyed it a lot, and I think what I liked so much about this show is that, at its core, it's really just about kind people who are mostly just doing their best to be decent to each other and do right by each other. And they have misunderstandings. And there's a lot of comedy in those misunderstandings. There's silly stuff. There's fights, including physical fights that get pretty outrageous. There's characters making mistakes, but it feels like everybody's really well-intentioned and really earnestly trying their best. And I just think it's kind of impossible not to like a show like that. 

I also just really appreciated that this show—it had a good cast of characters. There was a lot of quirky folks. When I was watching it, I was reminded of shows like Superstore, where it's a little bit sitcom-y, you're in a store, you've got this big cast of personalities that you can kind of call on for comedy bits, as needed. And I thought it worked really, really well. 

And the romance between Phumjai and Yang, it was really nice. They just kinda liked each other once they got past their initial misunderstandings, and they got more comfortable with each other over time as they worked together on this project—on this store. They really got to know each other. 

Phumjai was fixated with this influencer Tammy originally, and he had a really natural progression away from that crush and toward developing feelings for Yang because of the authentic time that they were spending together and the real bond that they were building. And I always just find those kinds of romances really compelling. They're making something together, and that makes them want to be good to each other, and it makes them see the best in each other, and then become interested in each other. And I just think we don't get enough naturally building romances like that in the genre. 

Ben 

NiNi, since we successfully bullied you into watching this show, what did you think of it? 

[NiNi laughs]

NiNi 

It was deathly cute. I enjoyed every single minute of the show. I liked the internationalist perspective of it because you've got Odo and then one of the workers in the store, I think, is part Thai? And then Yang is Chinese, so there's some fun internationalist stuff happening in the show that you don't always see coming out of Thailand. Ngern was there. 

Ben 

Oh, are we talking about that now? For those of you who give a shit, who have been in the genre before 2gether the series, who were there before even SOTUS, Ngern Anupart, who played Earn in Love Sick the series, and also played the lead role in Waterboyy the movie, and was in a terrible Thai drama called Part Time this series, which we all attempted just for him. 

Shan 

Did you memorize that man's resume? 

Ben 

Of course.

NiNi 

He did. 

Ben

Ngern Anupart is back with us in BL, and he's swole now, girls. You should watch. 

[NiNi laughs]

Shan 

I will say, I'm a Love Sick girlie. I did love Earn, the character in that. I love Ngern, the actor. I was very happy to see him in this. His character was perhaps the most annoying in this show. [laughs] 

NiNi 

I loved it! 

Ben 

It was so funny that he was so annoying! I loved him in this! 

Shan 

He played Phumjai’s brother, Phojai, who was a classic overbearing older sibling who just could not let Phumjai have any space to live and learn and make mistakes. He just was so on top of him all the time and making him lose confidence in a way that I think was well-intentioned, but just extremely wrong-headed. Just getting in the way of his brother's success as he was constantly professing his intention to do the opposite. It was a really good storyline, to be clear, like it was really well done. 

NiNi 

It was really great and the other great part is that the whole time he's dating Phumjai’s good friend who also works at the store, and they're kinda working together to make the store a success in the background but they're doing it all wrong. Phojai and Tag are adorable together, but Phojai’s a little closeted. So it gets a little complicated. But overall, it ended up being real cute. There is a fantastic gag with some disguises that I swear to God was so hilarious. 

Ben 

Highlight of the year for me. [laughs]

NiNi 

This show was funny. It was sweet. It was… pretty hot, actually. 

Shan

Right! High heat.

Ben 

This show does comedy really well. The comedic timing of this show is so intentional. It was intentional when they were filming it, and it was intentional when they were editing it. It isn't perfect, but it's intentional and it lands really well. This show was so funny in the early episodes when it was leaning more into the sitcom bits. 

NiNi 

I found it funny all the way through, because I always find some of the humor in the pathos that comes later down the line. Like it was so funny when Phumjai and Yang went on the practice date because Phumjai is getting ready to go on this date with Tammy. And he's going on this practice date, and all he's thinking about on this practice date is, “What does Yang want to do?” 

So he shows up at the practice date with green bread, a baseball mitt, like. [laughs] That's like, so much going on, and I'm like looking at it like, “Oh, this is so sweet and so funny because of course he would bring a freaking baseball mitt because he thinks that Yang would have a good time. This is adorable.” 

And then the end, when Phojai gets kidnapped—follow us, girlies. Phojai gets kidnapped because Phumjai is paying off this debt—there's a little mafia shit going down in the end. But Phojai gets kidnapped for, like, months, and then when they finally pay off the kidnappers and they've released Phojai, you discover that Phojai has actually been kind of running the shit in the mafia for the last two months! [laughs] He’s become, like, a trusted lieutenant. 

Of course you took over, because you are an elder sibling. This is what you do. You got them organized. You made them respect you. I respect that as an elder sibling myself. I was just like, “That's exactly what I would do.” It was so funny. I enjoyed it entirely all the way through. I did not mind Daou’s wig. 

Shan 

Thank you! Can we talk about the wig? This is very important to me. 

[NiNi laughs]

Ben 

No, because first I have to get very serious about how good the show actually was. We will undercut the seriousness of which I will talk about how good the show was with you talking about how terrible Daou’s wig was. 

[NiNi laughs]

So, for those of you who listen to The Conversation podcast, you know that NiNi and I don't always see eye-to-eye when it comes to really huge power dynamic differentials between characters. This show is one of the very rare examples of a workplace set show where the workplace mattered and also the leads were equal to each other. One of the caveats of Thai economic politics is that foreigners cannot hold majority stake ownership in a Thai corporation. So despite Yang's wealth that he brings to the table and determination to open up a store in Thailand, he cannot have majority stake. 

Phumjai, who doesn't bring any money to the table, brings the fact that he is a Thai national to the table. So the two of them have equal ownership in the store—Phumjai slightly has more. We think Phumjai might be a bumbling idiot, but when asked to hire people because Yang, even though he has business sense, he doesn't know anyone. Phumjai actually hires competent people to help out in the store. Yeah, sure, he hired a bunch of femmes, but he hired really competent people to work in their store, and was actively engaged with trying to make the store successful. He was doing rapid iteration of various marketing strategies to try to get customers to engage with their store. He doesn't use the formal language that Yang does, but he is trying his best, and bringing even his own little money he has to try and make the store’s opening as successful as possible. 

His interest in Tammy is also grounded in something real. We thought he was just lusting after an idol, but he had had a weird meet-cute with her when she had visited Thailand as a tourist. She asked him just to show her around because she was a little bit lost, and he basically went on a date with Tammy when she first came to Thailand. So his crush on her wasn't grounded on just the persona she presents in her show as an idol. He had had a genuine interaction with her and connection with her. And when he finally approaches her properly, Tammy is also receptive to his advances. Sure, they get complicated by the fact that this is a BL and she's a girl—she can't win. But she also takes that in stride. She is a character that is not dismissed along the way despite being a girl in a BL. 

This show was legitimately so good at managing its character dynamics and how the characters played with each other. The growth between Yang and Phumjai together and personally was really well handled. This show struggles a little bit on the back end by getting a little bit silly with Yang's debt and the [sigh] mafia shit, but legitimately, this is one of the better shows that aired this year. 

Now let's talk about Daou's wig. 

Shan

Thank you! I've been holding it in so bravely. 

[NiNi laughs]

Shan 

Listen, listen! This is about respect. I need to pay respect to Daou, because that man had to wear this monstrosity of a bowl cut on his head. This horrible wig. The sideburns looked so fake. Every time you got a slight angle on the wig, you could tell that it was just a mop sitting on his head. Somehow he managed to deliver some of the hottest scenes of the entire year while he had that wig on his head. And you know, I just think that that deserves recognition. 

Ben 

Let's talk about the hottest scene of the year. 

[NiNi laughs] 

These people recognized that this was a show set in a convenience store—

Shan

Mmhmm.

Ben

—and they said, “Offroad and Daou,” and they were like, “Yeah, what's up?” “We need you guys to knock down these fucking shelves in this fucking convenience store, banging it out, because it's definitely a kink thing for Yang.” And they said, “Bet.” 

Shan 

In front of the security camera!

Ben 

Yang absolutely has that footage saved somewhere. 

Shan 

[laughs] 100% he does. 

Ben 

I had an absolute blast with this show. This was legitimately one of my favorite shows of the year. 

NiNi 

I must concur, and I actually scored it a 10. 

Ben 

Holy shit.

NiNi 

And the reason I scored it at 10 was that at the end they turned the store into a workers cooperative. So that gets 10 for me. 

Shan 

Bonus points from NiNi. [Shan and NiNi laugh]

Ben 

All right, Shan, let's give it the real drama rankings. 

Shan

I gave it an 8. I loved the show. I had a great time with it. Is undeniably messy, and the writing really went off the rails in the final couple episodes, and I can't pretend that that didn't happen. But I really loved it. 

Ben 

I gave the show an 8.5. The writing does unfortunately get a little bit messy towards the end. They didn't really know how to do the epilogue episode as cleanly as some of the more experienced teams do. But that's me being, like, fair from the drama ranking scale. In my heart, this show is a 9. 

[Ben and Shan laugh]

This show was really good! It was a lot of fun to watch. People should go watch this show. It's a lot of fun. 

NiNi 

I am calling producer privilege to give the show a 9 from The Conversation. 

Ben 

I'm okay with it. 

Shan 

I'm good with it. 

NiNi 

We have an accord. Love in Translation gets a 9 from The Conversation. Daou and Offroad, thank you so much. 

Ben 

If you are a fan of BL, but you say you've gotten burned out on all of the school-based stuff, this is probably one of the better workplace shows. 

But, at least you know, that a windmill… 

[all laugh]

All right!

NiNi 

Moving on.

00:41:14 - I Cannot Reach You

NiNi

Our next show—we have officially reached the Japanese portion.

Ben

Bangers Only section of this episode!

NiNi

The first show that we're going to talk about is an absolute banger: I Cannot Reach You. Ben, what is I Cannot Reach You about?

Ben

Oh, Shan gets this one. 

NiNi

Shan!

Ben

Oh yeah!

NiNi

What is I Cannot Reach You about?

Shan

I Cannot Reach You Is a friends-to-lovers BL about two childhood friends who are in high school together, one of whom is a long-suffering pining gay boy, and one who is kind of an oblivious little chaos muffin. These character types might sound familiar to you, they are very common in Japanese BL. But what makes this story feel a little different is that it really sets out to deal with the deep angst that really comes in when you take friends to lovers seriously. 

This is not a fluffy show, even though it is light throughout, they're really digging into the pain of being in love with your friend, the confusion of feeling your feelings for your friend start to change, the shock that can come along with it. Kakeru, who is the main character here, learns in episode one that his longtime best friend Yamato is in love with him, and this whole show is about his journey to accept and understand that, and then also figure out how he feels about it and how he might be open to their relationship changing. 

It is, bar none, the best friends-to-lovers drama that I've ever seen in the BL genre. It is one of my absolute favorites of the year and on a short list of perfect shows that we got this year in BL.

Ben

NiNi?

NiNi

Well, damn. I love this unreservedly. I have, seriously, no notes. Actually, I have one note and the note that I wrote—I'm just gonna read it verbatim: I Cannot Reach You, to all of Japan, “Hey, guys, I'd like to introduce you all to this wonderful concept called talking. Please look at this adorable story about how talking can make your life better, and even help you find love.” [laughs] And that's my only note on I Cannot Reach You. 

I agree with Shan. I think it's a perfect show. It's so cute. It's so deeply felt. It is so centrally angsty. It had me deep in my feelings in a way that I have not really felt since His - I Didn't Think I Would Fall in Love, which is another Japanese banger that I love. It's a great show, easy to catch up on. It's not very long. It is so perfect. It's perfectly balanced, perfectly paced, perfectly written, perfectly acted. I love it, unreservedly.

Ben

This was probably one of the best shows that I have ever watched in all of BL. Very few BLs actually properly capture the experience of being closeted as a kid in a way that is not triggering. I was closeted—we talked about this on the show. It sucks. Ohara Yamato was in love with his friend Ashiya Kakeru, and he did not make his attraction to Kakeru something that Kakeru had to deal with. It's other people, who are so irritated watching the two of them interact, who intervene and sort of force them to deal with this issue between them. 

But here's the big thing. We can yell all day long about how characters should talk to each other and all this other stuff, and how communication is really important in romance and all these sorts of things. This is very true, but the thing is: when you're queer and you know the consequences of being publicly queer in this horrible, racist, homophobic hellscape, you don't want to force that on your friend. That's the crux of friends-to-lovers angst that is so critical. 

Yamato really does love Kakeru, and he doesn't want to force Kakeru to deal with being queer. They don't say it directly, but that is a huge part of the hang up here. That is so perfectly captured in a way that is not triggering. It is so hard to be gay and alone when you're a teenager. There is a real complex restraint that grips you when you're 17 and gay and struggling, and in love with your best friend, where you don't want to be alone, and you really want to be with your friend. But being gay hurts, and you don't want to be responsible for inflicting that hurt on them, that I connected to directly in Yamato, that is portrayed so, so well by Maeda Kentaro. 

And this show doesn't just do the whole “I love you” thing and then they make out or whatever. Like, “I liked you the whole time!” We watch Kakeru deal with the reality that he has to reframe his own relationship with one of his closest childhood friends. And he ends up finding attraction in himself as well, and he goes through the difficult process of that. That is not a switch that turns on. It's like, “Oh, shit, I guess I'm gay now because your desire for me is so strong.” What this show gets correct is, when you have a friends-to-lovers story, there's the drama of, “This relationship is really important to me, and most romances fail. Do I want to lose one of my critical relationships that underpins my understanding of who I am as myself for booty?” The answer in a lot of cases is no. That's a scary threshold to cross—your bestie is not your partner. 

He considers what this means for their friendship and their relationship, and how there is a genuine need to respond to someone's feelings. That, even if he is your best friend, the way that he's felt like this about you for a long time means you can't just pretend that that wasn't there the whole time. Just because you were wrong about what you were perceiving in your friend doesn't mean you can just bottle it up and walk that shit back. It's so expertly handled in a way that is adorable. 

Like both of you describe the show as cute, and that's sort of the point. This show managed to make some of the most difficult things about coming of age and being queer kind of palatable, and adorable, and really interesting to engage with. And it's so well done, the way that these boys play out the complexities here. 

And then we get to Episode 6, and Shan will remember when Episode 6 aired, because I almost called her on her personal phone line after I finished Episode 6. 

[NiNi and Shan laugh]

Shan

He was like, “sound the alarm, holy shit!” [laughs]

[NiNi laughs]

Ben

I was like, “Shan, There's a BL emergency! Get home quick!”

Shan

I was waiting to watch it until we had all the episodes and he was like, “Nope, no more waiting! Get on it right now!”

Ben

Episode 6 is probably the best single episode of BL of the whole year. Kakeru has a lot of self doubt as part of his character—really well executed—and he expresses that he can't understand why Yamato might like him, and Yamato gets angry about this, and is like, “Don't you know what you're worth?” and he throws Kakeru on the bed and has this moment where he crosses the line with him. And you can see possibly years of restraint breaking, and he kind of scares Kakeru. When he gets his senses back, he scares himself and flees, and has this whole breakdown where he despairs about this. This is so perfectly executed because that's how it feels when you're in the closet and you make a mistake and reveal yourself.

Shan

What's wild is that, that's just the end scene of episode 6. Episode 6 does so much shit even before that. This is the episode where Kakeru and Yamato have this conversation on the roof, where Yamato confesses. At this point they both kind of know what's going on, but Yamato comes right out and says, “This is how I feel. This is what's going on.” And then he does the classic BL thing of immediately after confessing, he tries to walk away because he doesn't wanna stick around to be rejected. 

And, something amazing happens in that scene, which is that Kakeru is like, “Hey, bitch, get back over here! You gotta listen to what I have to say now. You don't get to just confess and then run away.” And I was, like, fist pumping when that happened because it was, first of all, just a brilliant subversion of a classic trope. And he says, “I wasn't gonna reject you. I am still kind of processing this. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but I want to think about it. You're important to me.” And I just love that. 

Like NiNi said earlier, “Wow, the power of talking to each other instead of just having your emotional outburst and then running away—actually trying to communicate.” And that's so much of what this show is about. The moments where these two characters are able to communicate with each other clearly and get their real feelings across, that is when they are able to make progress in their relationship, and there are lots of characters in the show who are reinforcing that along the way. 

Hosaka is probably the fan-favorite character. He's kind of the wise queer kid off to the side. He's got his little barrette in his hair. He's watching, he's perceiving, and he's really pushing—quite forcefully, actually [laughs]—the two lead characters to, like, talk to each other and get their shit together. 

My personal favorite side character is Yamato's sister: Mikoto. She is just this quiet presence who has always had her brother's number on this, and knows exactly what's going on, and really chooses her moments to show up and be a mirror to him of what she's seeing, what he's doing, and make him think, and even give him some courage. She even has a couple scenes where she does the same for Kakeru. She's a great sister character of a type that we don't get to see very much and I really appreciated her.

NiNi

This show’s a banger. There's no reason not to watch it. Watch the damn show.

Ben

This show also released the sexual tension in a way that J-BLs very rarely do, particularly not in this lane of J-BL.

Shan

And it did it beautifully. 

And I feel like we should talk a little bit about the visuals of this show. I'm not someone who normally even notices a lot of visual style. I’m a words person. I really am pretty dialogue-focused, and I don't usually notice a lot that's going on with the visual effects in the show, but this one used them so effectively that even I kind of keyed in.

Ben

So this show uses a bokeh effect, which is this thing where you play with the focus of the camera to make these blurry lights appear. This is very common in anime to show that a character is experiencing heightened emotion. Like the emotions are sparkling out of them, and the show color-coded the boys's visual effect to reflect when they were experiencing intense emotion. It’s very obvious to the audience when the moment turns for Kakeru. Yamato is bursting with emotion from the first goddamn episode, and when it starts to happen for Kakeru, we're finally—“Oh, finally, these bitches are both on the same page.” 

The other fun visual gag in the show is, very early on there’s this moment at, like, an arcade or whatever, where Yamato gets a stuffed animal for Kakeru, which is part of him thinking he wants to be with this girl. He ends up keeping the stuffed animal and the stuffed animal ends up becoming the audience stand in. So, like, whenever a moment happens between the boys, they cut to the stuffed animal whose arms they've moved to create a different expression—him either being, like, overwhelmed with kilig feelings about the boys being cute, or aghast feelings [laughs] about something untoward suddenly going on. It's a great running visual gag.

NiNi

This show is awesome. It gets at 10. What were you guys’ scores?

Shan

Perfect 10, baby!

Ben

For those of you who don't know, NiNi and I are far more loose with our 10s than Shan. Shan is a stingy bitch when it comes to 10s.

[Ben and Shan laugh]

Shan

Understatement. I have watched over 400 dramas. I have given out eleven 10s total, but this show is one of them.

Ben

I also gave this show a 10.

NiNi

Okay, so I Cannot Reach You gets a 10 from The Conversation and we are on to the next one.

00:54:43 - My Personal Weatherman

NiNi

The next show that we're going to talk about on this what is definitely going to be a monster episode is My Personal Weatherman. Who wants to take this one? Ben or Shan, who is telling us what My Personal Weatherman is about?

Shan

Ben’s definitely gotta do this one.

Ben

My Personal Weatherman is a very kinky BL where a local weather forecaster has a live-in boyfriend who is an erotic manga artist. They have a very Dom/sub, and they are not very good at talking to each other. They actually do say a lot to each other in this show. They just constantly misunderstand each other—very refreshing for Japan. Segasaki is the weatherman who provides for them. Yoh is the manga artist who is very much struggling. Yoh sees himself as kind of a slave—he doesn't really necessarily enjoy the sort of housewife role he's been placed into, and resents that they seem to only have sex when it [doesn’t] rains? 

He pretends like he doesn't want to have sex with Segasaki, but then he has a whole blow up because they end up in a sunny [rainy] season where it doesn't rain a lot and has a whole breakdown episode where he just masturbates furiously for a whole afternoon because they haven't had sex in a while. It's a very fun reveal that the reason why they don't have sex is because that's what Segasaki thought they needed to do, which has really good payoff in, like, the next episode or two later. 

This show was a little bit complicated to talk about and watch. This very obvious kink dynamics going on in this, but people who are more familiar with Japanese home dynamics say some of this is actually fairly normal for husband and wife dynamics. And the show ends a little bit abruptly, which is part of my consternation with it. I kind of liked a lot of what the show was doing. I unfortunately watch too much BTS stuff, and it was revealed that some of the things that were going on with Segasaki were kind of improvised by a Higuchi Kohei, who plays Segasaki, which I think muddles some of the messaging of the show. 

But before we get deeper into that sort of stuff, NiNi, I know I bullied you to watch the show, and Japanese BL is not always your forte—reactions and thoughts on this show?

NiNi

So you're right that they are communicating, they're just willfully misunderstanding each other. I found that incredibly frustrating. But I still like the show. I did. I did like the show. I think that the miscommunications that they're having, because they are talking and miscommunicating that way, I am less annoyed by the miscommunication. If they were just not talking, it would be like a completely different thing. 

And then I like the settings. I like the side characters. I like the main characters. I like that Yoh cannot cook and Segasaki loves to eat his food anyway. Yoh’s a terrible cook, like terrible, like— [laughs] it's so bad, and Segasaki literally eats everything that Yoh will make with a smile on his face because he loves him so much.

Shan

He ruined a curry. I don't even know how you do that.

Ben

That's really impressive. Curry’s so easy. His curry was crunchy! Gurl.

NiNi

I think the thing that I'm not sure comes across, but in your description of the show, is that they've been together for a while. This show stretches on a little bit. It shows how they ended up together?

Ben

One of the things we got clarification on is like their cohabitation is fairly recent. The offer was made when they were still students, but the cohabitation is recent.

Shan

Which we didn't find out until almost the end of the show.

NiNi

Segaki thinks that he's being clear with Yoh. Yoh, because of, I guess, self-esteem issues or whatever it is is completely misreading the very direct words I think that Segasaki is using, but Segasaki is also being direct, but not entirely clear. So it's not that it's easy to misunderstand, but you could see how misunderstandings could happen. Yoh is kind of withholding even if he's saying things. 

Segasaki is picking up a completely different kind of thing from what Yoh is saying, because he thinks that they're in a loving relationship, while Yoh thinks that they're in a weird master-servant dynamic. So, they're in a relationship. They're just, they're in two different relationships. And so they're talking past each other. 

Yoh doesn't understand why Segasaki won’t be certain affectionate ways with him, and the minute that it becomes that Yoh actually expresses that in a way that Segasaki understands, he completely changes the way that he behaves towards Yoh. And he does do that softness and affection and stuff with him because he didn't know that that was what Yoh wanted. He thought that what he was doing was what Yoh wanted. It's similar to how Yoh is reading Segasaki. 

I found it interesting. Frustrating, yes, I will not deny that I found it frustrating. But I found the way that they chose to deal with the miscommunication trope, which is a big trope that Japan uses—which is a lot of times why I have trouble with Japanese BL, because miscommunication frustrates the shit out of me—but I think that the way that it was used in this show was very clever, and I liked how they move past it. I think that how they moved past it was also very interesting. 

So yeah, I think the show was pretty good. I would score it highly.

Ben

Shan, thoughts on the show?

Shan

So [sigh], sometimes, in BL fandom, I think that we as an audience latch on to the idea of a show, and then kind of give a show credit for our idea of what it's doing instead of what it's actually doing. And this is one of those shows for me. It's not a fave. 

I liked a lot about the show—a lot of the things that NiNi just mentioned—I thought were interesting. Like, miscommunication trope is not my favorite, but it's hugely Japanese for cultural reasons, for language reasons, so I'm very used to it—and I've seen really good executions of it. This show, I feel, did not have the quality of writing that it needed to support the complexities of what it was trying to do with these characters. And that showed through a lot, there were a lot of cracks in this show. 

You kind of alluded to one earlier, Ben, about how there were—what I perceived while watching—there were some inconsistencies in characterization in Segasaki in particular. And we learned from the BTS that that actually probably was an actual inconsistency, because it wasn't in the writing, these differences in how he was appearing in these different time periods. It was something the actor was just trying out on his own, and they kind of just let him do that. 

There were lots of instances of dropped threads or missing context to understand the characters' reactions and things. I read some awesome gap filler, thoughts, explanations, and interpretations of what we could make of the characters behaving in certain ways. To use an old Internet term: that's called ‘fanwanking,’ and that is when the fans of a thing have to do a lot of extra work to figure it out and explain it because the show has not done that work itself. And that, for me, was kind of the bottom line with this show. It didn't do all of its work, and I think that a lot of us were so intrigued by the premise—were so into the visuals of the show, liked the pair, liked the characters enough, to fill in those gaps and still really enjoy it. But for me, the show didn't get to the level of quality that it was aspiring to, and it didn't quite work for me, in the end. 

On top of some of those gaps that I think were kind of there throughout the show. You said earlier, Ben, I think, that it ended abruptly. It's not just that it ended abruptly, it didn't finish its story. It felt very unfinished. To me it felt like an intentional grab for a season 2—a play to try to get the fans wanting more so that they could maybe get funding for a season 2? And hey, if that's what they're going for, power to them. I hope they get the money. I'd really like to see them finish the story. But, I would have liked more if they would have actually finished the story initially that they were trying to tell. This show for me, it tried some things. It was interesting. It was enjoyable to watch.

Ben

[laughs] She said, “Girl, you tried.”

Shan

It’s a little bit of a Girl, You Tried for me! I'm not gonna lie, it is!

Ben

Here's what I'll say. I don't think all of the pieces of the show work together as seamlessly as they wanted them to. However…I don't care. [laughs] 

I liked what the show is trying to do. I really liked the really messy relationship between them. I like that Drama Shower went with a show about two people who are trying to be together and failing miserably at it. I do like what the show was attempting to do. I find myself far more forgiving to the show because it was trying things that BL doesn't do very often. I also just really liked episode 4, where Man-san comes to their house.

Shan

Yes, let's talk about Man-san, best character in the show. [laughs]

Ben

It was one of my favorite moments of the year, the bit where she knocked at the door and Yoh panics, and Segasaki’s  like, “Oh so she’s here?” and he starts stretching. He's like, “Don’t worry.” Like he’s ready to fight this woman [NiNi laughs] who he believes that Yoh was having a secret romance with on the side, and then the door opens and—she's been a Segasaki stan for a while. And they have this really great comedic overlay of [laughs], “Oh my God. I'm at my idol's house.” And all he does is charm the shit out of her for the whole episode, and piss Yoh off because he thinks Segasaki's flirting with her. 

I had so much fun with this show. This is the closest I come to a vibes rating. I tend to be forgiving with shows that are trying things that are fresh in the genre—or at least underexplored. And so, we’re mostly rating this show on the fact that it executes high heat in a believable way, for the most part, and was generally a really watchable eight weeks. I had a lot of fun with this show.

Shan

Mmhmm. I hope they get their season 2. I wanna see them finish it.

NiNi

I ended up giving this an 8. I think it was pretty good. The parts that I liked I really liked, and the other parts were just kind of a meh for me. ‘Meh’ is always going to be worse than ‘bad,’ for me anyway, unless it's offensive. So it drags it down from what could have been a 9 to an 8 for me. 

Shan, how about you?

Shan

In a shocking twist, I gave it a higher score than NiNi. I gave it an 8.5. Maybe because I, like you, Ben, appreciated what it was trying to do and wanted to give it a little credit for that.

Ben

I gave My Personal Weatherman an 8.5. So it can get an 8 from The Conversation. It's fine.

NiNi

So My Personal Weatherman gets an 8 from The Conversation, and on we go.

01:07:01 - If It's With You

NiNi

Our next show that we're talking about is If It's With You.

Ben

Oh! We're back to bangers! Let's continue!

Shan 

I got it!

If It's With You is about Amane, a high school student who fucks… You want me to say more than that?

Ben

No. You are correct, bestie, and this show is perfect. 

[NiNi laughs]

This show opens up with a high schooler having ill-advised sex with an older character, who's about to move to the countryside with his grandma. And his last hookup is like, “It's been really fun tearing that ass up. But maybe, when you move to this little, small seaside town, you can have a normal high school romance.” And he scoffs at the notion of someone like him ever having a high school romance, but little does he know he's in a five-episode MBS BL, and that's exactly what's in store for him! 

And it's great! He moves to the little seaside town. He immediately runs into a really hot guy who's super sweet, falls for him, and it ends up being mutual.

Shan

I like that this show is a twist on the classic romance trope of goin’ to a little seaside town, meetin’ someone unexpected, fallin’ in love. Like, there's hardly a more classic romance trope—we've all seen it a million times. But what was nice about it is that we had this young character who was already kind of jaded, and just didn't think that love was something he was interested in. And we got to see him form a really genuine connection with somebody—that was initially based on thinking he was hot and wanting to fuck him. Yeah, Amane definitely wanted to have sex with Ryuji. He made it kind of clear. 

One of my favorite things the show did was Amane is not in the closet. He's not ashamed of who he is, and he made sure that Ryuji knew, first that he was gay, and second that he wanted to be physically involved with Ryuji. He told him that straight up, and kind of braced himself for rejection because, as we learned, he had been rejected for that in the past by other friends. And then we get to see Ryuji react to that, and process it, and be like, “Okay, that's cool. I don't know that I can really reciprocate that right now, but I want to keep hanging out. Is that alright with you?�� What a cool response to that. What a way to be, Ryuji, I love that! And then we got to just see them build a relationship from there. It felt very genuine.

NiNi

Amane is one of my favorite types, which is a masking sad boy. He's a sad boy who is pretending to be happy, and pretending to not care. Basically, he's putting on this front of being carefree when he's actually a very sad, very hurt boy, and Ryuji clocks that immediately and tells him, “Yo, you don't gotta do all of that around me. It's fine if you’re sad.” At that point I was not only in love with the show, I was in love with Amane. 

In fact, my only critique of the show is, I think, at the very, very end it pulled its punch. But… basically, Amane is one of my favorite characters of the year, and there's so much about Ryuji, too. Ryuji is a kid who's lost his dad, and he works with his mom in the restaurant where his dad used to cook. Literally, his dad is the one who taught him to cook, and now he cooks in the restaurant, and sometimes he doesn't go to school because he has to work in the restaurant, and his house is a little chaotic. But there's one corner where his dad's shrine is, which is spotless. 

Guys, if I start thinking about this show too much, I'm actually gonna cry. I think the show touched me somewhere very deep, and it's a thing that I'm still thinking about, even if, as I said, I think it pulled its punches a little bit at the end, it stayed with me. Also, some of the greatest set design. Y’all know I love Japanese set design. It's a fantastic example of set design.

Ben

Continuing the conversation we had with I Cannot Reach You about how it's very difficult to be gay when you're young. Amane tried to have the youth thing that Heartstopper indicates that we could potentially have, and Amane is crushed for it—the way many of us are crushed—accidentally! The best thing about the way Amane gets crushed is that his friend crushes him without realizing he did—excellent gay angst. Top tier. I feel the old wounds festering. It's great. 

NiNi

[laughs] Why are you like this?

Ben

[laughs]

So Amane is not well, and he's doing what many of us do: he skips it. Gay people who are closeted do not get to have high school romances. We don't get used to people perceiving us and what it means to be a couple. We skip so much of this, and then you become an adult, and these anonymous hookups—that are not very meaningful—and they can feel weird, because you're trying to be vulnerable with someone, and they don't want that. And it sucks to try and have intimate moments with other gay people that feel like transactions. It makes you feel cheap about yourself, and Amane understood that. And he's gorgeous. He's a funny, thoughtful, heartfelt little boy, and he already thinks he is just someone else for other people to hook up with.

Shan

I just want to say NiNi’s right that they pulled their punch at the end, and it's why this show isn't perfect for me. I loved it a lot, but the show started, as we’ve mentioned, with a character for whom sexual intimacy—sexual desire—was a big part of just how he lived, how he thought of himself, what he liked to do. And I don't like it when shows explicitly or implicitly imply that serious relationships, true love, do not have a sexual component. That sex is something salacious and dirty, and that love is something pure. And I think, because the show pulled its punches at the end here on the sexual relationship between Amane and Ryuji, I think that's a little bit of the implicit message that they put out there. And I don't love that. So I do have to ding them for that. They didn't finish strong.

Ben

I do agree in that regard and it was very unfortunate for this show that I Cannot Reach You finished, like, two weeks later. [laughs]

Shan

It really didn't help this show that I Cannot Reach You came up on its tail and did it better.

Ben

I really like the show. I really like the way that it set up a very initial premise of “maybe you should try a real romance, kid.” Like, you're still a kid. You can still have a good romance. It doesn't matter that you failed once: A great message to all the little gays out there, old and young. You can still have worthwhile romance. Shiro got to have a great relationship with Kenji at like 47!

Shan

There it is! I've been waiting for it! It's amazing! You made it two hours without it. Two whole hours before you did it.

Ben

I was trying so hard, bestie. I really was. I was really trying not to mention What Did You Eat Yesterday? in this episode. [laughs]

NiNi

I knew once we hit Japanese BL, it was only a matter of time.

Ben

I was trying so hard, y’all. Like, they were talking about the way this man couldn't cook, and I was like, “Ooh, I can't mention What Did You Eat Yesterday?” 

[Ben and Shan laugh]

Y’all got me so conscious about my favorite show! They dragged me, y'all! They ate me up! They tore me to pieces! 

But seriously, in terms of, like, messaging, I agree. They muddled it a little bit, but I really like Amane's arc. 

It's good! One of my favorites of the year. Let's go around the room. Ratings! NiNi?

NiNi

I give it a 10.

Ben

Shan?

Shan

I gave it a 9.5.

Ben

I also gave it a 9.5. I think it is a Conversation 9.5 because we all agree that it muddled the waters on Amane’s relationship with sex as it pertains to Ryuji.

NiNi

I concur. So, it's a 9.5 from The Conversation for If It's With You.

01:15:38 - Absolute Zero

NiNi

And now we are into the shit. [laughs]

Ben

Oh, oh shit! Oh fuck! It's two hours into this! I have almost finished my daiquiri. I am drunk. 

[NiNi laughs]

Let's talk about Absolute Zero!

NiNi

You're gonna get exactly three minutes on Absolute Zero, okay?

Ben

Oh, sure, that's all I need.

NiNi

I'm not letting you get into another New Siwaj thing. [laughs] Should be easy, because I didn't watch it, and Shan and Ben did not finish it. Ben, tell us what Absolute Zero is about.

Ben

Absolute Zero is a time travel BL in which a gay man in his 30s… No, he's technically 26. Oh my God. A 26 year-old gay man! His partner, who he lives with, has an accident. He's in a coma. He's having a bad time. And then a magic taxi takes him to the past, and then he does nothing for six episodes except date the younger version [laughs] of his boyfriend, and confuse the fuck out of them. And then apparently a bunch of time travel nonsense happens after this, and I had to be forcibly dragged off of this show [Shan laughs] because the clowns were worried for me. 

We don't need to talk about the show. Shan, you don't need to talk about it? NiNi, you don’t need to talk about it. I'm gonna look directly into the camera. 

[NiNi laughs]

New Siwaj, you had multiple opportunities this year to do something meaningful. I have had to sit here across from NiNi for over a year as Tee Bundit has put out three different shows, 2 and one half of which I thought flopped in one way or another. [Shan laughs] You had multiple opportunities to give me something useful to talk about with NiNi on this podcast, and you failed me, sir. 

This was your chance to do Until We Meet Again-style BL again, and you should have given us all something sad and melancholy to reflect over as a real good capstone of this year and you [starts yelling] fucking blew it for all of us! 

I cannot believe you, sir. You've wasted so much of our goddamn time. I cannot believe you embarrassed me on this podcast like this. 

[NiNi laughs]

Shan

New Siwaj is having whatever the opposite of a renaissance year is. 

NiNi

Ooh.

Ben

So bad. Like, you should have thrived under these circumstances. This is your bread and butter: caring way too much about little shit, but you didn't get any of the big shit right. This was a terrible experience. Literally, only two other people we know of finished your goddamn show.

Shan

And they hated it, every minute!

Ben

They had nothing positive to say about it. For over two months, this was horrible. What an absolute waste of genuinely good talent at every level of this production. Reportedly, everyone gave decent performances, and you wasted them on this empty drivel. What the fuck was this? You had four years of having the rights of the story. You had the actual writer of the novel on staff helping you write the goddamn script. And it was still this stupid empty mess, which apparently ends at none of it really occurring, but everyone having some sort of form of temporal PTSD? Like this was a 12 week Star Trek episode? What the absolute fuck was this?

[NiNi laughs]

Shan

I have nothing to add. 

NiNi

Hydrate, baby, hydrate.

Ben

Oh, girl you know I got my water right here. 

This show gets no rating from The Conversation. We DNF’d this show. We will never be going back to this show. 

I will allow the rest of you to offer additional commentary. Proceed.

NiNi

So, Ben, is this breakup gonna stick?

Shan

Yeah, right. 

Ben

We have talked about this girl. 

[NiNi laughs]

He's got a whole college BL with all of the B- and C-listers at GMMTV coming out in the spring. I gotta watch this fucking shithow, don't you worry. 

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Shan

There never has been a break up, and there never will be a breakup. Let’s just be clear.

NiNi

They’re the couple that fights in the street, and then the next day they're all boo’d up. I hate you so much.

Ben

We are what they thought they were doing with Cher and Top in Only Friends.

Shan

Mew and Top.

NiNi

[laughs] I’m so mad that you called it Cher in Only Friends!

Ben

Oh, Mew and Top. Right, right, right, right, right, right. 

[NiNi laughs]

It gets a 0 from The Conversation!

Shan

An Absolute Zero.

NiNi

An Absolute Zero.

Ben

Oh man, I didn't make another windmill joke during If It's With You—If It's With You is about how— [laughs]

A windmill!

[laughs harder]

NiNi

I am so done with you. I am moving on. We are moving on.

01:21:05 - My Dear Gangster Oppa

NiNi

We're moving on to—I am just calling it ‘the main event.’

Ben

No, no, I'll do it, because you have to describe this one. You're gonna take this L, bestie.

[NiNi laughs]

On to our next show: My Dear Gangster Oppa. NiNi, tell us about [laughs] My Dear Gangster Oppa.

NiNi

My Dear Gangster Oppa is the B-movie’s B-movie. My Dear Gangster Oppa is a Thai BL based on a Korean webtoon that I have not read—because I never read these things—but I do know that it's based on a Korean webtoon, so I get a point for that. It is about the titular gangster oppa, Tew, and the titular dear, Guy. 

They meet playing some kind of mobile game virtually and they somehow become sort of close, or at least close enough that when the gaming team decides that they're going to meet in real life, all the other gamers are like, “Guy, you ask Oppa to come to the meet up, because he'll come if you ask him to.” Well, at that point they thought it was a her because Oppa plays with a female avatar because of reasons.

Ben

Naive assumptions.

NiNi

[laughs] The point of the matter is Oppa’s a gangster, like legit—guns, beatings, stabbings.

Ben

He has murdered people!

NiNi

He has absolutely killed people, and Guy is just a sad gay boy in love with his bestie since high school… 

I'm sorry guys, I'm doing a terrible job of describing the show.

Shan

It's not you, NiNi, it's the show!

Ben

I'll back you up. It starts off as a show about gamers, and two of them falling for each other, and then decides to become a shitty mafia BL.

NiNi

[gasps]

Shan

A boring mafia BL.

Ben

There it is. It becomes a boring mafia BL.

NiNi

Shan and Ben are stabbing me through the heart right now. I just want to let you, the listeners, know.

Ben

Well, how about you climb over the wall wearing your kneepads and drop onto—[Ben and NiNi laughs]—the mattress?

NiNi

That's why it's a B-movie’s B-movie, Ben!

Shan

No, listen. NO!

NiNi

Okay, the show had—the show had ideas.

Ben

Did it?

NiNi

It had ideas. Some of the ideas were really good. The execution of the show is terrible. Some of it is terrible. I—okay, it's all terrible by accident. Like none of this is done on purpose. Do not get me wrong. It is very, very bad.

Ben

They hired the most juiceless boys, and then pretended that they had juice. That was not good. Like if you had— 

Oof. I have my own read. Finish talking about your little show you had fun with before I cut it to pieces.

NiNi

This show is not good. It's not good. I am not defending it on any type of quality grounds. I just enjoyed the fuck out of it. That's all I'm saying. It was trash. You could see all the seams, as Ben has intimated. You can see the stuntee's knee pads and elbow pads. You can see them throwing themselves off of things and falling onto the barely-hidden mats. Oh my God, it's so bad. It's so bad that I laughed my ass off for eight weeks. I'm sorry, I had a good time.

Shan

Let me give NiNi some credit. I just binged this show this week, and I was genuinely having fun with it for the first half—the same vibe that NiNi’s talking about. Like I was, like, “This is hilariously bad, but it's kind of funny.” 

[laughs] We have to talk about the bright orange scar makeup. 

Ben

Do we?

Shan

Did they not have red or black in their makeup kits? They put these fucking neon orange scars on him [laughs], and it was the worst thing I've ever seen. But it’s like, that kind of shit is funny, it was a good time. But the show's biggest sin to me is not that it wasn't good. It was never going to be good. It's that it got so fucking boring, because it abandoned all the funny elements—the fun and silly and wacky things it was doing in the beginning with, like, the gamers—and treating the difference between them in some ways so seriously, and in some ways so deeply unseriously. That dichotomy was kind of fun. 

But then in the second-half of the show, it becomes all about this fucking mafia plot, and it was terrible. Like, it—it was terrible because it was so boring. The energy just sucked straight out of the screen every time I had to sit through these long ass scenes of Oppa talking to these different mafia guys about what they were mad about and why. I never gave a single shit. It was horrible. And that is why the show pissed me off, because it was fun, and then it decided to just be this dull nothing. 

This show, like Oppa, needed to quit the gangster life.

NiNi

[laughs] When I tell you, I actually screamed. Like, my sister had to come check on me.

Shan

It was all downhill from that line. That was the peak of the show.

NiNi

[laughs] How dare you? The show had a budget of $47.18 and it spent all of it on that scar prosthetic.

Ben

I watched this with Aiden, who you may have heard on the I Told Sunset About You episode. Aiden could not remember Tew’s name, and once he started wearing those horrible suspenders [laughs] Aiden just started calling him Urkel for the rest of our watches. 

NiNi

Now you see, that's fun.

Ben

Shan refused to learn his name and just called him ‘Oppa’ the whole time.

Shan

I stand by it.

NiNi

It's the B-movie’s B-movie. It's like B-exponential, like B-to-the-power-of-B. Okay, I'm sorry. I am that girl.

Ben

You heard many a Gay Rant from me over the last year. New rant unlocked for The Conversation: Gamer Rant.

NiNi

Oh, no.

Shan

Oh, boy.

Ben

We don't talk about this on the podcast, but I have a very long history of being very involved with a very specific video game. I have deep and meaningful relationships with other gamers. I was the best man at a gamer wedding where sixteen of us showed up. We were deep at that wedding—we had our own goddamn table. And I showed up as the only representative at a smaller wedding to make sure that one of us was present to witness the event. 

Gaming relationships are so important to me because when you're a weirdo and you don't fit in, It's easy to become close with people very quickly online because you're anonymous. They don't know anything about you. This show ends up abandoning all the interesting things about this weird collection of people who had found each other through this game, and decided to meet up together and extend that relationship into meatspace, to then become the weirdly worst mafia BL we've seen in a while, which was so twisted because the show clearly likes action film, and then embarrassed itself trying to mimic them. And clearly cared about violence, because Tew has a legitimately violent history that is handled with far more seriousness than even something like KinnPorsche did. 

There was so much that was way more interesting than being a shitty action schlock BL that this show could have been by starting with the gaming component, and it was legitimately infuriating for me to see this show use it as a cheap way to say these guys know each other, to then do nothing interesting with the mafia shit. 

I hate this show, so much. This is one of the worst shows we watched this season because this show could have been a fun action schlock B-movie if it was a fucking movie. But it asked for eight fucking weeks from me. I spent eight hours with this motherfucker—I had a lot of time to think about this shit. This show sucks way more than it even realizes that it sucks, and that's really the sad part about it all. This show is one of the worst [laughs] shows I watched in this season and I hate it.

NiNi

Shan, Ben is gamer offended, among other things.

Shan

I do think this show would have been a lot better if it was about the gamers instead of about the mafia.

Ben

There was a real opportunity for them to just only talk about their team stuff and for all of Tew’s gangster shit to be lore going on in the background, cause when you're hanging out with your homies online, their real lives are lore. Like, NiNi is in school. That means nothing to me.

[NiNi laughs]

“Is she gonna be present for this show? Oh, wait. No. She's gotta worry about, like, her real life stuff with her family or her school or our podcast. Well, shit, NiNi's busy. I guess I can't bug her to watch this tiny Taiwanese BL that I really like. It's not that important.” 

Shan does really cool shit in her real life. That means nothing to me! “Shan, are you available to watch this Japanese BL that I really like?” That's all I care about.

Shan

Always bestie, always.

Ben

That's the point. Gaming friendships—we don't really know what people do in their day-to-day lives. Like it would have been legitimately funny if Tew was, like, never lying about shit. Like, “Yeah, we just had a really weird stuff. Like, a guy came into the store. I had to, like, beat the shit out of four guys. I might have killed one of them. Whatever. We got rid of his body.” And they would be like, “Haha! Whatever! It’s time for practice.” If they had legitimately focused on whatever gaming shit they were concerned about and all of Tew’s mafia shit happened in the background as just fan fiction we all made-up, this would have been a fucking excellent show. 

But instead it was this disaster that ended up offending me way more than I expected it to. Fuck this show! 

On to Wahl, who was one of the characters I hate the most this year. Oh, I got words for that motherfucker. Don't think we're getting out of this recording without me going off about Wahl. Fuck that dude. I hate this dude so much. This character is not redeemable to me. Wahl only cares about Guy at the point at which Guy remains under his control. And the grossest thing this show did was have him accept that he can no longer control Guy, and then imply that he ends up with another guy at the end to perpetuate this cycle he has. He is so fucking vile. I hate him so fucking much.

Shan

I would just like to say that I concur on Wahl. That guy fucking sucks, and I hated him from maybe the second episode.

Ben

As soon as he did that stupid seal dance, I was like, “I hate this man!” [laughs]

Shan

You are done.

Ben

I'm like, “That's not even a whale, you stupid son of a bitch! Get outta here!”

Shan

He was a shitty friend, and as always, I got salty about him being forgiven without having to pay any consequences for his shitty behavior.

NiNi

We all agree that Wahl sucks. [laughs] We can agree on that. [laughs]

Ben

Does anyone have anything else to say about this terrible show before we move on?

NiNi

I am continuing to defend it. I will give it a 6.5.

Ben

Shan?

Shan

I gave it a 5.

Ben

I gave it a 4.

NiNi

So, Shan, by The Price is Right rules, you win [laughs] and the show gets a 5.

Shan

Feels right.

01:33:32 - Middleman's Love

NiNi

Moving on to our final show, and the one we all just finished today—well Ben and I finished. Shan watched the beginning and the end, which I think is a delightful way to watch this show.

Shan

I am very happy with my choices.

NiNi

So we all watched Middleman's Love. Yes, you might have heard me say on an earlier episode of this podcast that I would not be watching Middleman's Love. However, you should mind your business, because just because I said it doesn't mean it's happening.

Ben

I say I break up with New Siwaj every single season of the show. [NiNi and Shan laugh] It's whatever. We don't care.

NiNi

So I watched Middleman's Love, and I have actual real thoughts. But first we gotta tell the people what Middleman's Love is about. So, Ben, take it away.

Ben

Middleman's Love is a spin off from Bed Friend. Jade is a middle child and used to being overlooked by his family and his friends. They've got some interns at work. He doesn't realize that his intern has an enormous crush on him, and so is using his fudanshi eyes to try and hook him up with another intern, and slowly comes to realize the intern actually has legitimate feelings for him as we unpack Jade's own hang ups as it comes to love. 

While there are a lot of things I ended up enjoying, the show attempts to be comedic in a way that was really divisive and it ends up being kind of a mixed bag. Bed Friend is a really dramatic show, and while I don't think all of us currently here agree about how well Bed Friend did these things, Middleman's Love as a really comedic tonal shift doesn't always work because they're relying on Yim to be comedic as Jade in a way that makes you ask legitimately as Shan likes to say, “Why would anyone want to fuck this man?”

Shan

[laughs] Well, I did wonder why anyone would want to fuck this guy.

Ben

And that is honestly a legitimate question to ask early on in this. This ends up getting a little bit of Cheewin’s stuff—and I’ll let NiNi have that part—’cause she's much kinder to Cheewin about this than I am. But that's basically the gist of it. Jade is a middle child who's used to being overlooked and playing supporting role to other people who comes to realize that he can have love, too. 

NiNi, your thoughts on the show?

NiNi

That's it in a nutshell. I have a lot of thoughts on this show because it helped me clarify a lot of things about Cheewin. 

Now I get to say some lore and some BTS stuff because I know things too, Ben. This was originally cast with Jimmy and Tommy, with Tommy as Jade and Jimmy as Mai.

Ben

That would have been way better. [laughs] That would have been way better!

NiNi

Hold on. Hold on. Let me finish. While I think that Tommy would have made a better Jade, I actually prefer Tutor’s Mai to what we probably might have gotten out of Jimmy. 

I have a lot of Cheewin feelings about this show, because some of the things that I enjoy about Cheewin is that he likes to examine artifice and performance, and the things that we're hiding when we put on these big personas and personalities. And he explores that through a lot of sometimes-cringey humor, which I really like. It's the Secret Crush on You thing. It's certain parts of Make It Right. It's certain bits of Bed Friend? 

Basically, Cheewin likes to look at artifice and then puncture it. Cheewin likes to look at what makes people present weird and unpack that, and he likes to unpack that using sex because I think that Cheewin thinks—and I kind of agree—that sex is a revelatory experience. I suppose you can hide while you're having sex, but it's incredibly difficult, especially if you feel something for the person that you're having sex with. I personally find it interesting to watch that. 

I think that this show was miscalibrated, and not just in the acting or the tone. Unlike a lot of people, I actually do like cringe humor and some of the slapstick that we get in Thai comedy. I actually enjoy that stuff. It doesn't put me off. I think that the way that Cheewin uses humor in Middleman's Love is way better than how he used it in Bed Friend, and how he built it in Bed Friend. I think that the humor here, the comedy here, has done better. I think that Yim is not great at the comedy, and since Yim's character is the central character of Middleman's Love, it doesn't work. 

Plus, the story doesn't need eight episodes and Ben and I often talk about when something's too long, because I like a long show—Ben does not. This story was eight episodes and I think it could have been done in four. I like parts of the show. I like some of the things that the show is trying to do. I think that it mostly does not succeed.

Ben

Shan, you watched the first episode. [laughs] You were horrified by bobble heads in the intro—

Shan

[moans] I still have nightmares.

Ben

—and the general cringey humor. And then you came back for the finale. How about you talk about your experience with this show?

Shan

Definitely accurate to say that I bounced hard off this show after watching the first episode, and I definitely wasn't alone in that. In talking to other people we know who are watching it, a lot of folks had that reaction. 

NiNi has already touched on why—the humor was not quite calibrated correctly, and the performer who had to hold up the whole show wasn't really up to the task, unfortunately. That's just what happened here. And so, for some of us, I think getting through that super uncomfortable cringe humor with a performer who wasn't quite able to carry it was just really difficult. 

I struggled through the first episode. The bobbleheads really got me off on a terrible start. I hated those fucking things [laughs]—they still haunt me. And just throughout, I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be taking from the way Jade was being presented to me. He didn't feel like a real person. It was way too much. I didn't understand why this hot guy in the office was supposed to be looking at him with interest, given what we had seen of him. It just wasn't computing for me and I wasn't buying it. 

I didn't intend to fully drop the show, but then the following week I left on a long trip. And while I was gone, I missed the next three episodes. By the time I got back, I was just like, “You know what? No, I'm not taking this back up. I'm just gonna wait and see what you all told me after it finished.” And so, I kind of knew the show wasn't for me, but I wasn't opposed to the idea of it. I like an ugly duckling story. I like a story about someone finding their confidence and being able to accept that they are worthy of love. Like, that's a worthwhile story to tell. And so I'm not anti-The Middleman's Love. It just didn't quite work for me. 

The show finished this week. I decided to come back and watch the finale, just to kind of see where it landed, and [laughs] I actually think that was a great way to watch the show. If you, like me, are just not into the show's style and humor, you can watch the first episode and then you can watch the last episode, and you really won't miss any narrative beats—like it's super clear. The plot is very straightforward. You will be able to pick up in the last episode and understand everything important that has happened, and why the characters are where they are now. And you'll get to see Jade and Mai kind of settle into this relationship. 

And I thought that was nice. I enjoyed watching the finale. I liked getting to see a Jade who had seriously toned down some of the quirks of the first episode—a Jade, who seemed a little bit more confident—but still the same character. And I really enjoyed what they did with the physical intimacy in this episode. 

First of all, let me just give a cautionary note. If you are not watching this show on iQIYI, you are not seeing the whole show. I watched the finale on Gaga and got to the end and was like, “Where are these sex scenes that I heard about?”

Ben

The trust that Shan has in me [Shan laughs] she watched the whole show cut and was like, “Ben would never lie to me about sex scenes.”

Shan

You told me there were sex scenes in this!

Ben

“He used the Rihanna GIF. There is sex in the show.” [laughs]

Shan

And I will find it! So I did find it. [NiNi laughs] I went to iQIYI and I found it. So definitely watch it there. 

But I loved what they did with it because they really used the intimacy scenes well to convey these two settling into their relationship to convey Jade over time becoming more comfortable with their physical intimacy—finding his own power in it, finding his own agency in it. The performers did a great job on those scenes. I was incredibly impressed by it, impressed by the show's ability to take those characters from point A to B like that. 

If this show maybe wasn't entirely for you—if you, like me, dropped it in the beginning—I'd say maybe dip back in for the finale and enjoy a good time.

Ben

I like the idea of Jade a lot. I like the idea of a character who's had negative experiences feeling like he doesn't get priority from his family, ‘cause he's not the oldest and he's not the baby, not expecting a whole lot. And I like the idea of Jade having two really fucking hot friends in King and Uea, and just getting used to people being more interested in them, so not really seeing himself as a priority. And then he had like one relationship where he was literally told, “You were so weird and disgusting that no one wants to be with you.” 

I kind of get it with Mai. It structurally works. Mai is very pretty. He's generally very good at his job. He's kind of charming, but not overwhelmingly so. He's just naturally very pretty and nice to people, and fairly amenable and good at what he does. And he's really into Jade because he thought Jade was really kind and competent the first time he saw him. The flavor of this could have been correct, but then, like, they added way too much sugar. It’s just not great as a result. 

It's frustrating because Cheewin's ideas, as they're exemplified through the characters created for this show in Gus and Tong—and what he does with Jade and Mail—work really well. But the show is unfortunately really inessential. The people who watched this show were coming from Bed Friend, and I don't feel like this show really plays well as a Bed Friend extension or side story sort of experience. I think a lot of people brought the wrong energy to this show, and it took us weeks of recalibration to find something meaningful in it. And I don't think it finishes strong, because while I appreciate Cheewin’s giving the gays an extended boyfriend epilogue, an hour of watching people just be kind of cute boyfriends with no real drama on the table is kind of boring to watch in a TV show? And there's way more drama in watching people try to be boyfriends and deal with the consequences of actually being together. 

There's a great moment where they talk about their past exes and what that means for them, what they're bringing to the current relationship. How they want to handle drama going forward. I thought that was really good. I thought the fact that Jade asked for sex was really good, and then he got it. I don't approve of Mai biting that man's motherfucking glasses—

NiNi 

[laughs] I approve!

Ben

—and then tossing them around.

Shan

Ben, he licked his glasses off! Licked! [NiNi laughs] It’s a very important detail! I don't want you to get it wrong!

NiNi

[laughs] Shan, I don't know about you but personally I approve.

Shan

I did approve. I was very into that!

Ben

I actually liked when Mail wore the glasses in the second sex scene we got.

NiNi

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shan

A lot of good glasses material in these scenes.

NiNi

Top-tier, absolutely no notes, no complaints there, none whatsoever.

Ben

This show was a lot of fun when it wanted to be. And when it wasn't, it kind of sucked. NiNi, you don't spend a lot of time in the pulps, but My Dear Gangster Oppa and Middleman's Love? This is what the pulps are like. There are things that are worth talking about, and then there are things that are not. These shows are almost always kind of bad, but there's kind of something interesting that won't happen in the big network shows.

NiNi

I have been convinced into pulps before. I have enjoyed pulps before. We have discussed this before. I am not opposed to a good pulp, but it's gotta be a good pulp. The flaws of these two shows aside, I had a really good time with them, and I found things not just to enjoy, but also to give me a little bit to think about. Not like a ton to think about, granted, but they give me stuff to think about in both of these shows. And, for me, that's why I landed up more or less in the same place with them. 

I gave Middleman's Love a 7. I think that's a perfectly reasonable score for it.

Ben

I gave this show a 6, not because I think it's bad or necessarily boring, but as I've explained with my rating system before, a 6 means the show is not offensive but I really truly think the only people who gain value from giving this show the eight hours-plus that it asks for is people who really give a shit about BL as a genre.

NiNi

Shan, what about you? How are you rating your short version BL cut?

Shan

I mean, obviously I didn't fully watch the show properly, so take it with a grain of salt, but this feels like a 6 show to me. That's what my heart is telling me it's a six.

NiNi

I will allow y'all to fully average down to 6.5 under protest.

Ben

That's not how math works, but okay.

NiNi

Listen, we gave up on math a long time ago on this show. Okay, just accept it and move on.

Ben

I think 6.5 is fair.

NiNi

If you like cringe comedy, I'm not saying that this show does cringe comedy as well as some other shows have done cringe comedy. And I bring up here Secret Crush on You because it's by the same creator, and it is some pinnacle cringe comedy—like some fantastic cringe comedy—that is just not replicated here. But if you like cringe comedy, there's something in here for you. If you like Thai-style slapstick, there's something in here for you. 

That's all I'll say about it.

01:49:07 - Final Thoughts and Girl, You Tried

Ben

On to the final event: Girl, You Tried Winter 2023.

NiNi

So the Fall shows, there were some that tried and succeeded. They don't count for this award. Bye-bye, two-out-of-three Japanese BLs that we just talked about. So, My Personal Weatherman is in contention for Girl, You Tried.

Ben

Oh, then it wins.

NiNi

[laughs] Let's see what else we have here. We have Kiseki, which didn't try. Shan, do you think that Kiseki tried?

Shan

No, it did not try to be a coherent show. It cannot get the Girl, You Tried.

Ben

Thank you, Shan.

NiNi

So Kiseki is out of contention. Dangerous Romance sucked. It's not in contention for anything. Love in Translation is too good to be in contention for Girl, You Tried—that goes. Absolute Zero? Pfft, forget about it. My Dear Gangster Oppa, it definitely tried something.

Shan

Did it?

NiNi

I think it did. 

Ben

Hmm.

NiNi

Ben really just unmuted just to go “Hmm” and go back on mute. Okay, fine. It's going into contention. And Middleman's Love. I think Middleman's Love did try, and I think that the execution of it was off. Not that it was necessarily bad, but that it was off. So if I had to put a Girl, You Tried contest together right now, it would be between My Personal Weatherman and Middleman's Love. 

So, Shan, for you, very important vote now. My Personal Weatherman versus Middleman's Love for Girl, You Tried.

Shan

Oh, this is a hard one, ‘cause I think of the Girl, You Tried designation as, like, being for a show that got really close to being what it wanted to be—like almost got the execution right and then kind of just missed the mark. So for me, I think I'm going to have to give that to My Personal Weatherman between these two shows. I think it did have ambitions, and I think it did know what it wanted to be with clarity, and it just fell a little short on the execution. Whereas, I think Middleman's Love was a little bit messier and didn't have as clear of a vision of what it was doing?

NiNi

Okay, that's one for My Personal Weatherman. Ben, I already know your answer, but come on. Explain it to the people.

Ben

Hello, people. 

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

So when we were first planning this episode, the Girl, You Tried debate was between My Dear Gangster Oppa and Middleman's Love, but I didn't realize how much I fucking hated My Dear Gangster Oppa until we got here and I was talking about it. And I was, like, “You know what, actually.” 

I would have given it to Middleman's Love because Cheewin was trying to do the things that he likes to do, but now that you put My Personal Weatherman in contention, I gotta give it to that one. I think My Personal Weatherman is trying things that are harder to do than Middleman's Love. I think the ideas of that show are way more cogent, and easier to access and have a conversation about with people than something like Middleman's Love.

NiNi

Okay, so for me, if I had to choose who attempted the higher degree of difficulty, it would be Middleman's Love. It's a high wire act. It's so easy to fall off. If I have to think about who got closer to their intentions, I would say it's My Personal Weatherman. 

Girl, You Tried has a criterion, which is a strong premise with some sort of flaw/failure in the execution. But it has also become somewhat of a personal Rorschach test for us as we go through the shows, and attempt to unpack what it is that we think they did well, what it is we think they did badly, what it is we enjoyed and didn't enjoy. And that enjoyment component does have something to do with how we end up on a Girl, You Tried. 

If they're tied right now based on those other criteria, and I have to think about what I personally enjoyed more, I would have to give it to Middleman's Love. 

Shan and Ben outvote me. Boohoo. I'm gonna go cry about it.

Ben

I don't want to walk away from this particular recording pretending like I don't like Middleman's Love. The spirit inside of it is worth acknowledging.

Shan

I think both of these shows are worthy of talking about as shows that tried to do somethin’. I think for me, My Personal Weatherman just gets a little bit closer there and it's doing a little bit more.

NiNi

I think that's a good place to leave it, so that's going to wrap us up on Tens and Chops, our first ever full grab bag episode. So this is Volume One, hopefully with many more to come. 

Next up, the VIIB Awards. I'm looking forward to that. I'm excited. 

Anyway, we out. Say “bye” to the people, Ben. 

Ben

Peace! 

NiNi

Shan, say “bye” to the people.

Shan

Bye, people.

#podcast #lgbtq #kiseki: dear to me #dangerous romance #love in translation #i cannot reach you #kimi ni wa todokanai #my personal weatherman #taikan yoho #if it's with you #kimi to nara koi wo shite mite mo #absolute zero #my dear gangster oppa #middleman's love #season 5 #winter series #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #on art #thai bl #bl series #japanese bl #taiwanese bl #Spotify

[the-conversation-pod]

Due to life, today's episode is postponed. It's definitely gonna be worth it though. Catch you guys on the weekend!

#the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #podcast #on art

[the-conversation-pod]

OM NOM NOM: The What Did You Eat Yesterday? Episode

And we're back! Ben and NiNi finally sit down to talk about their favorite food BL, and unpack all the ways that What Did You Eat Yesterday? made them grapple with queer mortality and long-term commitment. Grab a snack and a drink, and join us for the discussion about our favorite Comfort BL.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Introduction 00:01:15 - What Did You Eat Yesterday?: The Granddaddy 00:12:08 - Favorite Episodes 00:19:22 - The Show that Keeps Coming Back 00:24:57 - Season 2: Mortality, Family, and Hets 00:43:10 - WDYEY is So Gay and Found Family 00:50:54 - Let’s Talk About The Food 00:56:36 - Final Thoughts (And A Moment to Drag Nobu)

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Introduction

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

01:15 - What Did You Eat Yesterday?: The Granddaddy

Ben

And we're back. Finally, my time has come. [NiNi laughs] NiNi has finally set down some time for us to talk about my favorite show after they embarrassed me in the Clip Show. 

We are finally talking about What Did You Eat Yesterday?

NiNi

We are. You must know by now, dear listeners, that this is the granddaddy. This is the show of all time for us, this is the yardstick by which things are measured. What Did You Eat Yesterday? is an article of faith for Ben and I. 

Ben, why don't you tell the people what What Did You Eat Yesterday? is about?

Ben

What Did You Eat Yesterday? is a slice of life food drama from Japan that is about two gay men in their forties-approaching-50, and it's about the daily challenges of their life as they try to maintain a long-term relationship with each other, and grounded around the meals they share at their dinner table.

NiNi

So simple a description. So, somehow, deep and devastating a show.

Ben

NiNi, how about you try describing our leads in this show?

NiNi

Hoo! Okay, let's see! So our two main leads are Kakei Shiro, played by Nishijima Hidetoshi; and Yabuki Kenji, played by Uchino Seiyo. These two are legends of the stage and screen, and it shows in the show. There's a cast of fun characters that surrounds Shiro and Kenji. 

At Shiro’s job—Shiro’s a lawyer—there is Mom-sensei, Mom-sensei’s son, and various other lawyers in the office. At Kenji's job at the hair salon, there is his boss, who is a serial philanderer; his wife who he runs the salon with; and a cast of other hairdressers and assorted hangers on. And then you've got their friends who steadily become more and more important to the show as they go along. Shiro's friend Kohinata and his partner Wataru, otherwise known as Gilbert. There are a lot of other characters around. There’s Shiro and Kenji's families, there's their neighbor, Koyama. There's so many, so many fantastic characters in this little show. Each of them so distinct, each of them so fully fleshed out and human in a lot of ways. 

I don't know how to talk about this show. I love it so much. It goes so deep for me. Like I said, it's an article of faith, almost, and I just get a warm feeling when I think about it. When I watch it, when I see all the characters on it interact, from the intensely important characters like Shiro's parents, all the way down to the lady at the supermarket where Shiro and Kenji buy their groceries—who is Shiro's partner in keeping his food bills down by pointing to the sales without speaking to him. Ever.

[both laugh]

Ben

I love their dynamic. It's so funny. 

To talk about What Did You Eat Yesterday?, let's talk about BL, and why What Did You Eat Yesterday? feels unique in relation to BL. In BL, you're in traditional romance. You got two pretty people. They looked at each other. They liked what they saw. And they gotta figure out if they can be together. In What Did You Eat Yesterday? we're past the figuring it out portion. They decided they want to be together and now they're navigating what that means. Unlike in a traditional BL, where your ongoing arc is, “Are these two going to finally kiss?” this show is structured episodically, where each episode is about something going on in their lives that they have to contend with, and then we move beyond that particular issue. 

There is an ongoing throughline about these two coming to a greater understanding of each other, learning to love themselves better, building more intimate relationships with the people around them, and building their relationship. But that's so different from the rest of BL. What Did You Eat Yesterday? episodes, in a lot of ways, can stand on their own. You can go back for What Did You Eat Yesterday? and watch some of your favorite episodes individually in a way that I don't think is as accessible with a traditional romance.

NiNi

I think what it is is that it's a traditional situation comedy. So it's not necessarily a serialized story, although there are elements that you keep up with—runners that go through the story—it is more of a “There's a situation. They deal with the situation. Sometimes there are hijinks, sometimes it's more serious. There's always some kind of a heartwarming moment, and they always cook something because food is the center of their home.” 

It's lovely and predictable in that way that you know what you're going to get in a What Did You Eat Yesterday? episode, but also, you never know how things are gonna turn for Shiro and Kenji. Not in the sense of, “Oh, are they gonna break up over this?” Not something like that. But you never know if this is the moment that one of them is going to have a revelation, or there's going to be a moving forward in their dynamic. You just never know if that's gonna happen. So there's parts of the show, particularly around Shiro’s very complicated relationship with the closet, that sometimes you think it's gonna zig and then actually it zags and you're like, “Oh, my God, Shiro is growing.” 

It's so fun to watch, especially at my age, to know that you can still grow, and learn, and change, and learn to adjust and compromise for other people if you care enough to do so. You ain't dead yet. [laughs]

Ben

I think what makes this show special for me is it doesn't exist in the bubble, and the issues that they have are specific to gay men. 

The very first issue that we encounter for them is how closeted Shiro is compared to Kenji, who is a flamboyant hairdresser. Kenji and Shiro's first fight that we experienced, Kenji brags to one of his clients about his boyfriend, and he gets a little racy about it. And then later, when Kenji and Shiro are walking down the street together, they encounter that client, who comments on the details of their relationship that she gleaned from Kenji and embarrasses Shiro, who is deeply-closeted and doesn't want people walking around talking about his business. Kenji gets really upset about this and begins to cry and asks, “Everyone else gets to talk about their families and everyone they love that's important to them. Why am I not allowed to?” And Shiro doesn't really have a great response to that, because he knows he's in the wrong, and so instead he just makes some of Kenji's favorite food. [laughs] Which is one of the ongoing ways they solve their issues. 

So much of this show is about the long term impacts of the closet and homophobia on gay men, and the ways it informs how we make bonds with each other. We mentioned Kohinata and Wataru earlier. They only meet Kohinata because Shiro has an encounter at the grocery store with a woman who also wants to take advantage of a sale on watermelon, but the watermelon is too big for their refrigerators, and so they decide to split it. They become friends. And, in time, they introduced Shiro to one of their other gay friends. And they do that thing that's kind of annoying from straight people. They're like, “You're both gay! Go, you know, mingle with each other.” And like, that's super awkward as hell, but it ends up being genuinely helpful. They do actually become friends. They start hanging out as couples together. 

There's a really good examination about the fact that Kenji is not exactly Shiro's type per se, but Kohinata is, and Kenji gets worried that if he leaves Shiro alone with Kohinata, something might happen. And they have a really sort of ugly breakdown where Kenji admits this jealousy is in him, but he feels like he's wrong in that regard because he once cheated on a partner, so he doesn't have the moral high ground here. But it's still something he's deathly terrified of because he loves Shiro so much and doesn't want to lose him. 

What's so special about this show is when they introduce something interesting in an episode, they're able to use that later, where you benefit from having seen that interaction earlier, but it doesn't matter if you don't remember all of it. You don't have to remember all those details about how he and Kayoko met to appreciate that they are grocery friends now, who take advantage of sales together and like to cook things together when there's a way to benefit. There's a beautiful examination of the mundane in this show that is really heartwarming.

12:08 - Favorite Episodes

NiNi

I wanna get a little bit into this idea that you had about the episodic nature of this and maybe do a little fun thing. Do you have a favorite episode of What Did You Eat Yesterday?

Ben

Depends on my mood at the time.

NiNi

What are some of your tops?

Ben

I think, in the first season, I really like the Christmas episode, they host Kohinata and Wataru. We had already seen Shiro make that meal for Kenji as the first thing he cooked for him. He tried to make the best dishes he could make the first night Kenji moved in with him, and that just sort of became their Christmas tradition because it just happened to be the holiday season. And I liked him sharing that with other gay people. That's also the episode where Shiro says plainly that he wants to take Kenji home so that his parents can see that he's not a sad person because Kenji's at his side. And that gets me. 

We've seen the Christmas moments three times in this show now, because we have Kenji first moving in, their dinner with Wataru and them, and then we had Christmas again in the second season. But in the second season, they end up changing their menu because of their changing health needs. That was really well earned because we, the audience, were primed for another Christmas meal and we're excited to see it, but it was really lovely to see them unpack that their Christmas traditions are something that they have control over. This is really significant for me as a queer person, because we have to create our own traditions. 

We don't get to have all of the same ones that straight people do. Some of us are not necessarily welcome with our partners around our families. We don't necessarily go home to see them. We often do events with other people at the holiday season. One of mine is getting other local homos together to watch the seminal classic by Rob Williams, Make the Yuletide Gay, a not great film from 2009, but one of my favorite films. 

The other episode I really like is from the first season, the episode where Kenji invites his friends to meet Shiro to talk about adult adoption, particularly because we had follow up on that episode in the second season. Adult adoption was the right choice for Kenji's friends, but Kenji later in the second season refuses to be adopted by Shiro, because he wants to hold out for marriage. Once Shiro adopts him, marriage is not possible, and that is what he wants. For pragmatic reasons, older couples have to choose adult adoption to protect the younger partner from family members that the older partner does not like. But adult adoption is not marriage. Gay people want to partner with the people that are most important to them, like other people do, and it is kind of shitty that we have to do all this roundabout stuff just to protect the people we care about. 

What about you? Do you have any favorite episodes of this show?

NiNi

I always like the episodes where Kenji cooks. Because Shiro is the one who does the majority of the cooking for the two of them. It's how he shows he cares, and he enjoys it, and he's good at it. And Kenji is always incredibly appreciative of the meals that Shiro makes. 

But I always like when Kenji cooks for Shiro. Sometimes he cooks for himself because Shiro was not there, and those will be times he indulges himself and makes something that he knows that Shiro wouldn't necessarily approve of because it's unhealthy. But I always like when Kenji cooks specifically for Shiro, because he's so deliberate and thoughtful about it. There's one episode in particular when he makes some kind of soup for Shiro when he's sick.

Ben

Okay, that one is so funny because Shiro’s so independent, Kenji never gets the chance to take care of Shiro. So the way we will run around excited about BL tropes, like, “Oh, someone's sick. Oh, let's get some lukewarm water. It's time to fucking get this boy a sponge bath!”

[both laugh]

That's the moment that Kenji is having. Shiro is really sick and so has to be cared for. And so he's really excited to make a simple meal for Shiro and take care of him. But he's such a nervous wreck about it. We get to watch Shiro listening in the whole time. Like, “What the hell is happening up there?”

NiNi

[laughs] Shiro is so particular about everything and Kenji knows it, and so it's going a little bit badly. It's a little bit of a disaster. He pulls it together in the end.

Ben

Kenji actually did a good job.

NiNi

Kenji always feels like Shiro does so much for him, and Shiro doesn't let him do things for Shiro, and so he will always grab the opportunity to do something. He's always like, “Oh, we need something? I'll run, I'll go get it. I'll do this. I'll do that.”

Ben

Kenji cares about Shiro, so he takes care of their home.

NiNi

There is a situation where the washing machine overflows and part of the apartment gets flooded. Kenji notices that this is a thing that is continuously happening, and he goes out and buys a hose and says, “Well, you know, next time this happens, you can just drain it into the sink rather than it flooding the thing.” And that's when Shiro stops and he looks around at all the things that Kenji does to keep their home running, and he starts to cry. It's a very heartwarming moment, because you don't get the sense that Shiro takes Kenji for granted at all. That's not what this is about. 

But it's just one of those moments where you really stop and take stock of how loved you are and it just overwhelms you. And that's the moment that he was having. But that moment was so earned by all the moments that had come before, where you see all the small ways that Kenji tries to take care of Shiro, and how Shiro feels like it's his responsibility to take care of himself and Kenji. And he doesn't like it when he doesn't feel like he's taking care of them. Well, he's realized at this point that, “Yeah, Kenji can take care of me, too in some big and small ways, and I knew he loved me, but I really feel like he loves me.” It's just a really lovely moment.

19:22 - The Show that Keeps Coming Back

Ben

This is our fourth outing with What Did You Eat Yesterday? I've been pretty close to this show the whole time it's been airing. What's it been like for you seeing the show come back three times now?

NiNi

I could watch this show forever. That's honestly how I feel about it. And the way that the show is set up, as long as Nishijima and Uchino want to keep doing it, I think we could get this show basically forever. It feels like meeting up with old friends every time you see a new bit of it, whether it's the special or the movie or new episodes. 

It always feels like you have these friends, Shiro and Kenji. They've been living their lives. You haven't seen them for a while and then, boom. They’re here, and you're so happy to see them and you just want to know everything that's been going on with them. You wanna sit up at night and chat and catch up with their lives. Every time the show comes back, that's how I feel about it. I can't wait to sit down and catch up with Shiro and Kenji, and see what's going on with them now. 

I feel like there's more stuff that maybe you're more aware of regarding the cultural significance of the show and what it means for Japan to be doing a show like this. So why don't you get into some of that stuff?

Ben

So the first show airs, and it's decently popular. Like it performs well in its time slot, which is one of the late night time slots. “Here's a quiet, easy to watch show. Now go to bed. You have to work in the morning.”

Uchino and Nishijima are veteran actors. Both of them have well over 100 credits. They are very successful actors who are sought out and are busy. And it was really surprising that they agreed to be part of this. I cannot overstate how significant it is for queer TV… talented, veteran actors are willing to play gay characters in a gay way, and are really proud of that work, and want to keep coming back and doing it. Uchino and Nishijima say plainly all the time: They are longtime fans of the manga and were very determined to bring it to air. They worked to rearrange their schedules to make sure that this show could keep coming back. 

[Nishijima] is an Oscar winning actor now. He's becoming more internationally famous because of Drive My Car. So it's not like these guys are getting less busy. Both of these guys are so good. 

If you've only seen Uchino play Kenji, you owe it to yourself to see Uchino play a veteran Japanese historical military leader or a fucking yakuza. He is so good. You get a small flash of that when he wears the suit in the movie, and in I think episode 3 of Season 2 where he flashes the macho thing. That's Uchino teasing the rest of us about the rest of the work he's done. He's played some intensely macho characters in his career, so it's really fun seeing him in particular playing someone as flamboyant as Kenji. 

What's so surprising is the show keeps coming back. Like season one, we go from the fight in episode one, where Shiro yells at Kenji for even telling someone else that he's in a relationship with him, to them meeting Shiro's parents in episode 12, and Shiro reassuring Kenji that he doesn't want either of them to die, that they're gonna eat well and live a long, happy life together. I would have been okay. It would have still been one of my favorite shows if we just ended at episode 12. 

The arc of season one is so strong of Shiro letting go a little bit and not being so stiff. He can't give Kenji all the things he maybe wants, but he can be a little less stiff about some of these things. And then they announced the fucking New Year special and I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And they're like, “Oh, yes. We’re going to a whole new year special.” What's it about? “Well, Shiro's really busy at work, so he's not gonna be home a lot.” And I'm like, oh my God. [laughs] This is so much fun. 

We got to see Kenji and Shiro dealing with separation anxiety and missing each other. That was so much fun. We got to see Kenji trying to play the role of brave housewife for a while. We got to see Kohinata and Wataru's internal dynamic for a bit. That was a really fascinating thing for us to get to experience. We got to see Kenji tell Wataru straight up, “Stop testing your partner. They're going to fail eventually. And then what? Stop holding back. You ain't brave. You ain't doing nothing.” Great stuff. 

And then we get the movie! And I was not expecting the movie either, and the movie ended up being heavier than I expected. The movie ends up having Shiro's parents regress and say they don't actually want Kenji to come over anymore. And that was a huge pain point that played out in season 2. I was not expecting them to hold on to that as long as they did. The delivery from Nishijima when he tells Kenji, “I know you're hurting over this,” was so good.

24:57 - Season 2: Mortality, Family, and Hets

Ben

Let's talk about Season 2, NiNI. What were the big things for season 2 that stuck out to you as sort of the big ideas?

NiNi

There was a definite throughline about mortality. There's a lot of death, and discussions around death, and inheritance, and family, and the next generation, and what happens when you are gone. That really sort of permeated the second season. But not in a melancholy way, more in like a contemplative way, a way that makes you think about who are the people who are important to you? What do they need? What do you want to share with them? What do you want them to have of you when you're gone? What matters about your relationship with them now? Those are the kinds of themes that the show used that runner to explore. 

Themes of moving forward and growing up in certain ways, because one of the things about Shiro that comes to the fore at work, Shiro is the kind of person who has avoided too much responsibility at work. He's avoided being promoted. He took the job that he took because he would be able to leave work on time and go home and have dinner. 

This is culturally related as well, because he's seen as a little feckless at work because he's not married, because Shiro’s not out at work, at all. He is becoming more out in other aspects of his life, but he is completely not out at work. So as far as anybody at work is concerned, Shiro’s a single man, and the idea of a single man of Shiro's age in Japanese society and culture. It's seen as him being sort of flighty and irresponsible, which is the opposite of Shiro, which is just so funny to me. 

One of the things that he does this season, because of the nature of what they're trying to explore through this idea of mortality, is that he starts taking on more responsibility at work. His boss tells him that she wants to retire and she wants him to run the law firm. This is something he would have never agreed to, never even considered before now, but because he's in a place where he feels stable and secure in his life, things are good with him and Kenji, he is coming to an accord about things with his parents. He feels stable, he feels like his life is good, and so he's more willing to take on that additional responsibility at work. 

I found that to be a really interesting part of this season, how the discussions of mortality threaded its way through the season and manifested in different ways. What about you? What are some of the things that you took away from this season?

Ben

Before I get into that, I really want to follow up on one of the things you mentioned about Shiro taking on this responsibility at work. This was a runner because it comes up about four times this season. I like that the thing that finally pushes Shiro over the edge is Kenji taking on more responsibility at work. Once he realized that Kenji was going to be a manager, and wasn't going to be home at normal times anymore, and was embracing this new responsibility in his life, that inspired Shiro to also do that as well. I really like that it was Kenji just accepting this sort of thing and being brave about it, that pushed Shiro. And I like how Shiro did it because he wanted to also help Osamu. 

You get the sense that Shiro intentionally took a job in this law firm because he wanted to work in a small law firm where there wasn't a lot of room for growth and promotion, where they wouldn’t be constantly expecting him to take on more responsibility and deal with juniors coming up underneath him. He wanted to work in a small family law firm where the mom had a son who was intended to inherit and take charge of the firm so he wouldn't be expected to. You get the sense that he was surprised that he was asked to take on partnership in this, but it ends up being something that's positive for all of them because he likes and respects Osamu. But Osamu's passion is criminal defense law, which is not very lucrative for their firm, but it's what Osamu's passionate about. 

We got to see Shiro and Osamu work together this season, and that this is not something that Osamu is being, sort of half-assed about. He got super worked up for one of their clients. I think in the first season, I thought of him as maybe a little lazy, being able to take it easy because it's his mom’s firm and Shiro’s really determined, but it was really nice to see that Osamu had his own backbone as a lawyer about things that were really important to him, that he wanted to do professionally. And some of that involves him not necessarily being hands on with the firm as he's not as good about these things. 

I really liked that Shiro is able to extend his tendency to want to help people in a more accessible way this season. He gets so scared about the gay thing that he just ends up hiding from so many people. I really enjoyed seeing Shiro be more flexible this season. He took the fact that his vision is getting worse almost completely in stride. [laughs] Even though he was so grumpy about having to spend a bunch of money on lenses. 

I actually liked the through line about how they're getting older and things are changing. I liked that the first episode this season was about them having to change grocery stores because Nakamuraya closed, and that was devastating for Shiro. That was the grocery store that he liked and trusted the most, and he had to go and find a new grocery. Thankfully, we find the same clerk at that one who is still helping them out. Speaking of her, we mentioned her earlier. I love that she has a completely distinct relationship with Kenji and Shiro, where Kenji’s like, “She talks to me all the time! She's great!” and Shiro’s just like, “What? She only ever glares at me.” 

[both laugh]

NiNi

She speaks to him one time in the entire show.

Ben

I love it.

NiNi

That's when he goes to the grocery store and she sees him in his glasses for the first time and he's self-conscious about them. And when she sees him, he takes them off really quickly and she goes, “I think they really suit you,” and that was it.

Ben

I love it. [laughs] I almost cried! I was like, yes!

NiNi

I was like that's your friend! She cares about you! [laughs]

Ben

I think she also commented once this season that the fish is actually good at the new store. She actually protected Shiro once. She was being told to go around and mark a bunch of sketchy food off that needed to go, and she saw Shiro eyeing her with the sale button, and she didn't put it on the food that she didn't think was gonna be safe for them to eat because she knew Shiro wouldn't take it if it wasn't on sale. [laughs]

I really liked in this season how Shiro was really trying to accept that things were changing in their lives. I love Shiro accepting that Kenji was going to take on this role of manager after the whole thing with the philanderer friend of Kenji's, whose wife, now that their daughter has graduated, was like, “I'm leaving this man. I can't be with him anymore.” And then he decides to fuck off to Vietnam, and so Kenji's left running the store. 

I like that Shiro accepted that they're getting older and that their food needs and eating habits are changing. That Shiro, despite his determination to save up as much as possible for their futures by being really pragmatic about their food budget, and probably other things in their lives as well, because he and Kenji never seemed to buy a lot of new things or go shopping a lot. Shiro increased their food budget in response to inflation and in response to the fact that Kenji’s cholesterol was maybe a little high, and wanting to make sure that Kenji ate the right food so that he would stay healthy. 

I really liked the final conversation with Shiro's parents where they talk about how they want to make sure that Kenji is in their will, that they accept him as Shiro’s other half. That they chided him not to fuck things up with Kenji.

NiNi

That they found a columbarium that would have enough space so that Kenji could be with them.

Ben

Right, and Kenji took this as the peace offering it was from Shiro's mom and started thinking about himself as the beloathed daughter-in-law. [laughs]

NiNi

It's so funny because this is basically Shiro's mom saying literally over my dead body, but in a nice way, like. 

[both laugh]

“Over my dead body,” but that's the acceptance? It was just so funny because all the things she's talking about, the columbarium, the inheritance, it's all well after I'm dead. But she's fine with it? Basically? This is the way that she's chosen to accept him. And he immediately understands that and he takes it absolutely in the spirit in which it's meant.

Ben

I love the way that they do it is the only way that Shiro and his family could. “Well, it's very cost effective for us to buy into this together right now. They're having a sale, so.” 

I really like that his parents were very stern with him about it, but they're like, “We're not going to move to the nursing home that's closer to you because it's more expensive. “We will deal with the hassle of being further from you because you're 50 now. We don't know how much longer we're going to be around, but if we're here for a long time, we want to make sure that there's something for you to have to make sure that you're okay as well.” And I liked how Shiro had to learn to accept that from his parents, not as a knock against him for being a bad son, but as for them trying to do right by him as his parents. I thought that was a really significant move from the show, considering how much the idea is that the kids are supposed to put everything they can into taking care of their parents as they get older. I thought it was really inspired for aging parents to be like, “No, we wanna make sure that we are not a burden to you in our final twilight years.”

NiNi

The relationship between Shiro and his parents is so fascinating from the very beginning of the show up until this bit that we've seen so far. Not just in terms of the way that they are learning and growing, and finding ways to accept who their son is, and he in his own way, finding his ways to accept who they are without losing himself. 

The structure of their relationship is also so culturally interesting to me. It just feels very Japanese. I don't know how else to explain it, the way that they deal with each other, the way that his dad never lets Shiro pay for anything for them, just things like that. His parents are so traditional. For a long part of the show, his mother would only wear kimono. It's only later on in the show that she stops wearing kimono all the time.

Ben

It's a really subtle thing with the costuming choice, but every time that she takes a step forward, she's not wearing traditional clothes.

NiNi

The dynamic is also interesting because Kenji's relationship with his family is so different than Shiro's relationship with his family.

Ben

Oh, let's talk about that episode, since you brought up Kenji's mom and sisters.

NiNi

So Kenji is the only son of a single mother, and he has two younger sisters. His family is very comfortable with Kenji being gay, with everything around that. He is very open with his family, he talks to them about Shiro all the time, but still his family have never met Shiro. With all the death-flagging that was going on around this season, his mom was just like. “Oh well, I, I want to meet your Shiro,” and he immediately starts panicking. He's like, “Are you dying?” 

So they have the meet up. Shiro picks this really nice restaurant for them to meet up. He's very considerate and thoughtful about how he chooses the restaurant in terms of what distance they'll have to go, and he wants it to be a nice experience.

Ben

It’s also the restaurant that Oo-sensei took him to the first time when he started working at the firm.

NiNi

Yep, he picks the restaurant with a lot of things in mind, basically. And so they have this lovely meal, and then Kenji's mom explains why she wanted to meet him. A friend of hers, her son died, and she started thinking about what would happen if Kenji died and Kenji's like, “What the hell?” and she's like, “No, no, no. Just listen to me.” But basically, she didn't want it to be a situation where, if anything happened to Kenji, that Shiro would not be able to stand with them as Kenji's family. So she figured at the very least if they met once, then they're not strangers and Shiro has the right, then, to stand with them if anything happens to Kenji, and mourn him as part of the family, basically.

Ben

That was so touching. I legit sobbed after that episode ended. [laughs] I'm getting hot right now thinking about it. That was such an incredible episode. Oh my God.

NiNi

It was so much. Kenji's family is so the opposite of Shiro’s family. They're teasing and they're chattering a mile a minute.

Ben

They're leaving the restaurant and his sisters and trying to take the receipt from Kenji so that they can pay part of their share and he's like, “Go away. Stop it. I'm the oldest. Let me do this.”

NiNi

It's a very different dynamic than Shiro’s family, and it's not one that Shiro’s necessarily entirely comfortable with yet, because he's so much more stoic than Kenji is. But he is starting to lean into it a little bit. He's still kind of on the outside of things in that regard, but they're teasing him and he's doing his little shy smile thing. He's not entirely comfortable with them yet, but you can see how he will possibly get there. I don't think he'll ever be the one who's teasing back, but he will become comfortable with them. You can see it. And that's what Kenji's mom wanted. That's the ball whe wanted to start rolling. She wants Shiro to feel like family with them. 

There's so much of that in this season. This season is just emotional hits after emotional hits in that regard. There's so much about family, and caring for people. Like, thoughtfully caring for people, not just absentmindedly caring for people, which is a big thing for me. Putting thought into how you care about somebody, and how you show that care for somebody, it's a big, big thing for me and something I enjoy seeing.

Ben

I really like how this season made me get super invested in a bunch of heterosexual characters. Like I ended up super invested in Osamu and his desire to become a prosecutorial educator for criminal defense attorneys. That was a big deal for him that he really wanted to take on this educator role, even if it didn't pay well, because it was really important to. 

I got weirdly invested in the sort of flaky hairdresser. The other guy who works at Kenji's shop, and his relationship with his girlfriend who can't cook.

NiNi

Incredible. So incredible. I love that so much.

Ben

There are so many layers to this whole thing.

NiNi

And the fact that you thought it was just a one-off thing, but then later in the season it comes back.

Ben

Oh my God. So, Kenji is invited to hang out with one of his coworkers, and Kenji at first is nervous. Like, “Is this hot young guy trying to get me into his house? I'm a married woman, sir!” and he's super nervous about what the hell is going on? But it's—like his colleague’s really intent on him coming over, and he talks about his girlfriend, about how they didn't work out because she couldn't really cook that well. He didn't like her food, and then one night he just got tired of it and made a really nice pasta, and she got super upset about this because she tries so hard to fill this role that she feels like she's supposed to, but she's just not a good cook. And she's never gotten the experience of someone enjoying her food, and they just didn't work out. 

I'm like, okay, well, that was a really cool story, but it’s a little bit sad. And then five episodes later in episode 9, we get the reveal that he missed her and they tried to work it out. And he tried to teach her how to cook more effectively. And then he decided to settle on baking. Somebody who’s such a stickler for details as her, “salt to taste” as an instruction does not work for her. So she picks up baking and ends up being really good at it, and then she has this moment where she gets to react to the first time of seeing someone smile and enjoy the food she made. And, besties, I ugly cried.

NiNi

It was a Capital M Moment. 

Ben and Nini [in unison]

It was so good! [both laugh]

NiNi

I wept. I wept! It was so beautiful. And you now see that they figured it out. They figured it out through food!

Ben

The biggest thing about What Did You Eat Yesterday? is it is the kindest show.

43:10 - WDYEY is So Gay and Found Family

Ben

What Did You Eat Yesterday? is so explicitly gay. Everything about this show is gay. The fact that Shiro doesn't want to be a super successful, high-powered lawyer is unusual. He does not fit the mold of a traditional Japanese man, despite all of the other things about him. He's just so unusual as a Japanese man that despite all of his attempts to closet himself, he ends up looking weirder to people the longer this goes on. It's so awful for guys like Shiro. 

For Kenji, everybody's gonna clock his ass right away, but Shiro’s not going to get clocked right away. And so often the fact that he doesn't get clocked makes him seem creepy to people. Like, there's that whole moment in the first season with the apprentice lawyer that gets assigned to him for a while, where that interaction ends up kind of a mess because Shiro's misreading signals from her, doesn't want her glomming onto him too much, and ends up accidentally really upsetting the girl by making her think he was trying to hit on her. 

Oo-sensei is like, “Shiro, what are you doing? You've been a bachelor the 20 years I've known you. What the hell is going on? Please do better.” [laughs] And it sucks because he's doing so good, but he won't tell her exactly that. 

Oh my God. Speaking of her. I love her so much. She got Shiro a portable induction burner.

NiNi

I want one. I absolutely want one of those.

Ben

They are so fucking useful. You can cook stuff on your dinner table without worrying that the whole fucking table’s gonna burst into flames. 

She lies to Shiro that she got it as a gift from someone else, and she's just trying to downsize some of her stuff, cause she's realized she's getting old and has too much shit in her house. And so she's like, “Yeah, Shiro, I need you to take care of this for me so that I can get rid of it.” “Well, I guess if I have to do a favor, it would be rude not to accept the gift under these conditions.” I love her so much. She can do no wrong. She is my favorite.

NiNi

She knows him so well. I wouldn't be surprised if she has already dialed in to what's going on.

Ben

She absolutely knows.

NiNi

I think she knows he's gay.

Ben

She also knows that he eats with someone. She asked very politely in the first season if he has someone to share meals with, and Shiro said yes, and she just said very good. That was very tactful, ma'am. I approve. 

Let’s talk about Kyoko a little bit, because we haven't talked about Kayoko much.

NiNi

I was just about to say all the women around Shiro are so great and Kayoko is definitely one of the greatest. Sorry, before we get into her, I just love the way that she ran into Kenji at the grocery store and acted like she was meeting BTS or something. [laughs]

Ben

She was so excited to meet Kenji, and Kenji's like, “Huh? What do you want?” I also like that Kenji was low-key kind of bitchy [laughs] at the grocery store with this weird woman rolling up on him. We see the version of Kenji where he is home with the man he loves and is loud about it all the time, or we see him at work where he is ON for his clientele. It was so refreshing to see Kenji as just another dude in a grocery store being like, “Why the fuck is this woman looking at me like that?”

NiNi

[Laughs] It was so delightful. I love Kayoko as a character. She doesn't pop up a whole lot, but every time she does, it's truly a delight. 

Her main story in this season is she and her husband finally, finally getting to meet Kenji, and they're both so excited about it. And it's this whole event. When Shiro and Kenji go over there, Kayoko’s husband is talking Kenji's ear off and wants to know everything. Everything! He wants to know how they met. He wants to know everything about them. They're just so enthused about their friend's partner, because they know that this is somebody that Shiro loves, and they love Shiro. So they want to love whoever Shiro loves.

Ben

It's really fascinating with the way some of these dynamics play out. Kohinata and Shiro have been friends with Kayoko and her husband for years. Kohinata even longer. But they've never met either of their partners. Shiro has talked so much about Kenji that they feel they know him. But it's notable that it seems like there's this sort of line they can't cross and say, “I would like to meet him.” There appears to be some sort of etiquette line that everyone's toeing here, where they want to meet Kenji. It's impolite to ask. It means that there's some sort of gap in their closeness. 

But they are just so happy that Kenji's finally showing up. They have this little dinner party together. And what is his name? Let me pull up his name real quick. Tominaga-san. He is so enamored with Kenji. He is resting his hand on his chin. He is batting his eyelashes at Kenji, he is like, “Please tell us. Tell us the story of how you met Shiro.” 

It was fun for us as the audience because Kenji immediately begins retelling the story we heard Kenji say to Wataru and Kohinata in season one, and so we know the story, and so we can roll our eyes with Shiro when he says he looks like Kaiba Ryu again. And Shiro’s like, “Okay, whatever, bro.” 

[both laugh]

City Hunter. It was so much fun. 

One of the things I really like this season: we got a sense of the relationship between Wataru and Kohinata, that Wataru had a crush on Kohinata when Wataru was still very much a minor, and Kohinata basically refused to acknowledge it for like five to eight years because he thought it was inappropriate. That Wataru was so gay that he was basically disowned by his own family. That's a really painful thing for the two of them. I was really glad that we got some insight into those details. I also like that Shiro and Kenji were doing the math on their relationship and they were like, “Wait, hold the fuck up, bro.”

NiNi

They were like, “Hold the phone. What did you? What?” He's like, “No, no, no. Nothing happened until he was old enough.” And they're all like, “But still!”

[both laugh]

That is something that felt very gay to me.

Ben

That was very real. I was like, “Ohh, gurl.”

NiNi

I have friends who are with people that they met when they were in high school, who were much older and they're still with them now. Now that they're in their late 30s and 40s it’s not so scandalous, but they've been together a long time.

Ben

Yeah, absolutely.

NiNi

That felt very gay to me.

50:54 - Let’s Talk About The Food

NiNi

This show is so good! It's so enjoyable, and we haven't even started talking about the food yet. Oh my God. The food on this show.

Ben

What are some of the favorite things you've seen made on the show?

NiNi

Mmmm…Shiro did something. He made, I think it was a version of khao man gai with chicken thighs in the rice cooker. I looked at that and I immediately thought, “I have got to try that.” That and the sushi pizza.

Ben

I have made Shiro's lasagna.

NiNi

How was it?

Ben

It's very good. His steps are really traditional. I think that's the big thing I learned when I've been copying some of his stuff. Shiro’s cooking food that you would find in like a basic recipe you would find somewhere else. What Shiro’s really good at is balancing his time for all the dishes he needs to make so that you have all of the four or five side dishes he wants to have every time you sit down, which I don't like to do. That's too many dishes. [laughs]

NiNi

That's very much Japanese cooking, though.

Ben

Five different bowls per person. Hell to the no. I am a Creole food home cook. It's all going in one fucking pot.

NiNi

[laughs] They do some one pot stuff sometimes, though. It's really good.

Ben

They do! Like, they have curry.

NiNi

They have curry and the same thing, the same khao man gai that I was just talking about as well. That was all done in the rice cooker, basically.

Ben

I liked that pasta that Kayoko made. I haven't made it yet, but I think about that one every time it's hot. I really liked that slapped together sushi that Shiro put together when Kenji's friends were coming over.

NiNi

That was good. I am also, like Shiro, not good at hot oil, so I paid very close attention to the tempura recipe to see if maybe I would have the wherewithal and the bravery to try it at some point.

Ben

I like that Shiro, despite being really determined about his own skills, how easily he collaborates with other people in the kitchen. I thought Shiro would be the kind of cook who was difficult to cook around, but he shares space in his kitchen so easily with Kayoko and Kohinata and Kenji when they help him out. Shiro admits that he's not very comfortable cooking with oil. Like, he's not very good at doing tempura, and he let Kayoko teach him when they hung out again. I like that he's willing to learn from other people. 

I liked in the movie when Kohinata and Wataru's fridge went out, and they brought a bunch of food over to them, they had like a mini feast and brought some stuff for them to save. They invited Kayoko over to help them make some stuff. In this season, they were like, we really want to get these special type of cheesy pancakes and Kohinata and he are just working through the recipe together, which let us have a really cool moment where Wataru seems like he's also starting to mellow out a little bit. He's just vibing with Kenji and they're gossiping about their boyfriends with each other.

NiNi

I love that demon twink.

Ben

[Laughs] He is a demon twink. He's like, “Is Shiro turning 50?” He convinces his well meaning rich boyfriend to send like a whole party package to them with a big ass balloon saying congratulations on 50.

NiNi

I don't know how well meaning Kohinata was? Because in that same episode, where they're making the pancakes, he says, “I'm so sorry about the 50 balloon,” and he looks Shiro dead in the eye in this kind of way. [laughs]

Ben

But that's not Kohinata being aggressive. That's Kohinata being alarmingly earnest. He very much needs to see you forgive him in that moment. It's the same thing that happened when Wataru kicked him out with the clams thing.

NiNi

The way that I read it, because Kohinata is very into his fitness, right? He looks good. He's very toned and muscular. He exercises a lot. He's got a great body. He doesn't look anything like whatever age he is. And while Shiro looks good for his age, Shiro does not look like Kohinata. And Kohinata’s very proud of his body. He shows it off, like the things that he wears, and all those kinds of things. So I just thought there was just him being a little bitchy as well, but in a nice way because he's Kohinata.

Ben

I’m gonna think about that. I’m gonna rewatch it and see how I feel about it with that in mind. I don't think that's what he's doing. I don't think that's who he is, but I’m gonna think about it.

NiNi

But yeah, it's not just the food. The food always looks good and I'm always like, “I gotta try that. I gotta try that. I gotta try that.” But just the process of watching them cook in this show, the way that it's filmed, it feels very comfortable. It feels like you could actually make these meals. It doesn't feel over complicated. It doesn't feel stressful. It feels like just this calm time in the kitchen and it makes you feel like you could do it, too.

Ben

We've talked to Japanese friends of ours that mention that the food Shiro makes is actually very simple and normal for Japanese people. He's not doing anything spectacular with the food, but that's also, I think, part of the charm. He's doing something really normal really earnestly every day as a way to let his partner know that he still matters to him.

56:36 - Final Thoughts (And A Moment to Drag Nobu)

Ben

This is my favorite show, and it will probably always end up being my favorite show. I say a lot that as much as I like BL, I like the silly little stories about gay boys falling in love with each other. I really do appreciate stories about gay boys staying together. That's why I'm really glad that we're seeing more sequels. We talked about this in an earlier episode this year, I believe, how we feel about sequels, and I do want them to keep trying to tell stories about gay people trying to make their lives work. I really like that this show keeps coming back and has more things to say—that it feels like everyone grew between both shows. 

By the end of season 2, we know that Shiro and Kenji have been together for at least eight years. I really like how they feel older. It's been almost five years since the first show released, and Nishijima and Uchino have changed in that time, and it was really cool to see the two of them exploring what it means to get older through these characters as well. There is room in this genre to tell stories about beloved couples growing together, and I am so glad that we have such a high bar of a show to refer to when we tell people we want that.

NiNi

You're talking about having this show to refer to, and refer to it you do, sir.

Ben

I do.

[both laugh]

NiNi

One of the things that I really enjoyed about this show is watching other shows come behind it in the same spirit, but not trying to do the exact same thing. Two in particular that really have felt like they came off the spirit of this show were Our Dining Table and She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat. I want to see more shows in this general vein.

Ben

We called episode 6 of Tokyo in April Is… the What Did You Eat Yesterday? homage episode. There's a moment in I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama that we called the What Did You Eat Yesterday? moment where we thought that one actor was channeling Uchino's performance as Kenji when he was enjoying the curry that he was eating.

NiNi

As you said that, watching Kenji eat the food is almost as much fun as watching Shiro prepare the food.

Ben

We got some manga insights from our friend, Turtles. We were hoping to bring her on for this episode, but she's so busy. I love you, girl, but we gotta find a better time to work with you. She talked about how when they first moved in together—they didn't capture this in the show—Kenji was not as animated about enjoying Shiro's food, and Shiro got a little bit stressed about that, because Shiro's trying to communicate that he cares about Kenji through the food and he wasn't receiving a lot of feedback for that. Kenji picks up on this and starts being more animated and more forthright about enjoying the food because he knows it's important to Shiro. 

Speaking of partners recognizing what's important to Shiro, let's talk about that motherfucker that Shiro used to live with.

NiNi

Oh my God. Nobu. Oh my God, what the hell?

Ben

I hate that man so much.

NiNi

He's so cruel. It is shitty behavior—absolutely shitty behavior—to not acknowledge and be grateful for somebody cooking for you. I don't care if you like the food or not. If somebody puts effort into cooking for you, you at the very least say thank you.

Ben

And when you use a shared kitchen, you clean up after yourself, goddamn.

NiNi

Cannot stand that character. The actor that they got to play him was so good, though, I really hated his face. Like—

[both laugh]

Ben

It’s the same episode we talked about earlier with the washing machine continually getting clogged and not draining properly. This happened years ago when Nobu was still living with Shiro. Nobu didn't offer to help at all. He was just like, “Clean this up right away before you cause problems for the people underneath us and they want us to pay for it.” And it's like, bro, this is his fucking house. And then he's like, “Whatever, I'm leaving. I'm gonna get me some chicken.” And I'm like, brah, you going to Popeyes right now? Come on now.

NiNi

And you're not even going to the Popeyes for the two of us.

Ben

That's the thing, too! It's not like he realized that Shiro was gonna be dealing with a pretty serious headache, and he's like, “Well, I'm gonna go get some cleaning supplies, and I'm gonna pick up some chicken on the way back.” He comes back like, like, “Oh, so you're still dealing with this. I'm hungry. You need to make some food, too.” I hate that man, so much.

NiNi

It really gives you an understanding, though, of how much Shiro has grown, because part of Shiro’s growing has been learning to love and accept himself. And you could tell in that flashback that Shiro did not love himself, and how much Kenji becoming a part of his life has encouraged him to love himself. 

One of the things that I noticed about the flashback with Nobu is how he shrank. He didn't argue with him. He was thinking things in his head, but he didn't argue with Nobu. He just kind of shrank away, and he would never do that with Kenji. He will always fight it out with Kenji, and I really appreciate that. Not only does he feel comfortable in this relationship, but he is also becoming more comfortable with himself. I thought that was a really neat sort of juxtaposition to see how Shiro used to be and how far he's come.

Ben

What I want to reiterate, after musing on it so much, is how genuinely special it is to have an episodic show about the lives of gay people in our list of shows to recommend to people.

NiNi

You know I'm not so much on the recommends as you are, but I will sit and watch this show anytime, any day, anywhere, starting at any point. I will watch one episode. I will watch seven episodes. I will skip around in time. I'll watch the movie. Because for me it's about just sitting and having that moment with these characters that I love. It's like a warm hug. I like this show, I love this show. Long may it reign. Hopefully they come back again. Not too far away. 

If I'm talking about a thesis statement of how I feel about this show, it is that What Did You Eat Yesterday? is a show about just going along through life with the person that you love. And that's all it is. There's nothing more to it. It's very simple, but in that simplicity there is so much.

Ben

I really hope we get to talk about this show again. I really hope that Uchino and Nishijima and friends are able to come back together for this show again. I will totally understand and respect if they can't, or don't. But I really hope they do! [laughs]

NiNi

I hope that we get What Did You Eat Yesterday? episodes every other year for the next decade.

Ben

If you have not yet watched What Did You Eat Yesterday? It is available on GagaOOlala. Please go watch it. I hope you enjoy it. If you are a member of our pod team and you are reading this transcript—[NiNi laughs]—and you've still not watched this show, I am begging you, please watch this show.

NiNi

She's gonna get a kick out of that. 

[both laugh]

Right, so that is going to wrap us up on Om-nom-nom, our What Did You Eat Yesterday? episode. We out. Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

#podcast #lgbtq #what did you eat yesterday #kinou nani tabeta #what did you eat yesterday? #kinou nani tabeta? #japanese bl #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #on art #season 5 #winter series

[the-conversation-pod]

Swoon: The I Feel You Linger in the Air Episode

And we're back!

NiNi and Ben bring Ginny back to the recording booth to discuss Tee Bundit's final offering of the year. We discuss our differing responses to historical romance, the difficulties with articulating big emotions from shows, and the balancing of political messaging with romance.

Come and join us for probably the most distant NiNi and Ben have found themselves as we discuss I Feel You Linger in the Air.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Introduction 00:01:20 - I Feel You Linger in the Air: Big Damn Romance 00:21:35 - Depictions of Intimacy 00:30:21 - Head vs. Heart 00:37:37 - Beyond the Romance and Story Integration 00:49:15 - Anticipating the Special (Or Not) 00:54:08 - Final Thoughts

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Introduction

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:20 I Feel You Linger in the Air: Big Damn Romance

NiNi

We are back. Welcome to our Swoon episode of the podcast, and on Swoon we are going to be talking about a big damn romance which is not something that we get to talk about a lot in BL. To help us do that, Ben and I have a special guest and our special guest is, duh-duh-duh-duh, Ginny! Say “hi,” Ginny. 

Ginny

Hello!

NiNi

Ginny is here with us because Ginny is also into the big damn romance. So, we’re here to talk I Feel You Linger in the Air. 

Ben, break it down for us. What is I Feel You Linger in the Air about?

Ben

I Feel You Linger in the Air is a historical romance set in 1928 Chiang Mai, where a young man from our timeframe ends up in the past, and ends up working for a very rich family that seems to have some sort of lordship over the region at the time. Our protagonist’s name is Jom. He is an interior designer who's been living in Chiang Mai waiting for his boyfriend to come back from England for a couple of years, and then his boyfriend comes back with some girl and its like, “Yeah, she's pregnant. We're over. Sorry, bro.” Jom has a no good, very bad day and then goes off a bridge into the river. And then a hot guy with a bunch of tattoos kisses him, and then he somehow wakes up in the past? Uh, didn't really wake up and past, he exits a river in the past, and then drama ensues. 

He ends up stuck, makes a couple of friends, catches the eye of the young son of the lord of this area, and ends up becoming close to him, and finds something very meaningful in this time period, which is also strange for him because of reincarnation. Lots of people that are important to him are in this time period, but as very different people who do not know him. This ends up being used for a lot of social and political commentary, some of it very subtle, some of it not so subtle, and I guess that's mostly the show.

NiNi

So, Ginny, how’d you feel about this show?

Ginny

I had a great time with this show. It was so beautiful from beginning to end. The settings were gorgeous, the music was gorgeous. Even when it was from The Nutcracker—

[NiNi laughs]

—it was one of the most—[Ginny laughs]—sorry. It was one of the most lush feeling dramas we've gotten in BL. The whole historical setting just felt very rich and detailed. Really felt like you were soaking in it. It's kind of a slow pace, but I didn't mind that and I felt like it worked with the setting and with the big romance historical story that they were trying to tell. 

In the first five or so episodes, I did feel like the romance was the weakest part, but as soon as those boys got together and we were in more of an established relationship situation, it was gorgeous. The intimacy was incredible. They got to me deep in the heart parts; really enjoyed it.

NiNi

I had a great time with it. I love a big damn romance. I've been reading big damn historical romance basically my whole life, and this captured the feeling that you get reading a big damn historical romance. There was a hint of the epic to it in certain parts. There were quiet moments in there that were really, in some ways, very romantically profound that kind of got me, like Ginny said, deep in the heart parts. I had a fabulous time. 

Ben, how about you?

Ben

So, I don't like historical romance in general. I do not romanticize the past, particularly the not-so-distant past, and it makes it often very hard for me to enjoy historical romance. I'm Black, and I'm from the US, and I grew up in the South. And so it is really difficult for me to really enjoy historical romance because these large gaps in power, often, between the characters, do not work for me. It often makes me extremely uncomfortable. I understand that the context of this caste system in Thailand are different than what Black Americans experienced in my home country, but Jom's arc to me can be blandly described as him landing in the past and being upgraded to preferred house slave, and that is something I struggle with even as there's a lot of stuff in the show that I really like. The undercurrent of that really bothers me. 

I also end up struggling with the end of this show when I reflect on Jom's journey because it's a very tragic story for me in a way that isn't cathartic. Like, I am still left with an intense melancholy coming out of this show that I have not been able to shake. And the parts of it that were really beautiful and enjoyable I don't think have unstuck me from how kind of sad for Jom and Yai I feel.

NiNi

It's interesting that the feeling that you're left with is sort of a melancholy, sort of a sadness, because that's not where I landed on it at all. Why the feeling of melancholy in particular?

Ben

Jom is yanked into the situation for reasons we don't understand, and then he is yanked out of this situation for reasons we don't understand. And so Yai has the unfortunate queer experience of deeply loving someone and having them ripped away from him. And he never really gets over that? Judging by his own letter to Jom that has passed down. And then for Jom, he's 25, he blew two years waiting on an ain’t shit motherfucker in Ohm, crashes his car, ends up in the past, has a very bad time, and then has a less bad time because of Yai. And then Yai is taken from him. And at least in the show, Jom gets back to our time frame. 

The show remembers that Ueangphueng was his sister. He gets to eat some crepes, he gets to tell Ohm, “I don't care anymore. I just spent eight months as a slave. Whatever. You can go marry that girl.” Then he gets yanked even further back to the past? 

I don't need the show to tell me why things should happen, per se…but this is a very familiar experience, having grown up in queer cinema, where a bunch of sad shit happens, and then the fucking thing is over and you're like, “Oh. Well, that was something.”

Ginny

So I did go into the show wary because I knew it was a time travel romance and the trailers looked real melancholy. They had this ode to eternal parting about them. It definitely tells you what it's gonna do from the beginning. I do feel you, especially with Yai. I'm not entirely satisfied with where they leave that Yai in the past. 

I feel like Jom has a whole journey ahead of him, and he did get some healing from his own trauma, but I didn't love that they left us with this heavy sadness and pining. It didn't have to be a romantic happy ending. They did give some pointers towards maybe what he did politically that also pointed to some real Thai figures that apparently were historically influential. But I would have liked to see a little more hope and uplift in Yai’s side after Jom leaves him, because we're meant to believe that Jom changed everybody's life. He inspired Yai to sit up and take notice of the world, to pay attention to some of the injustices around him. And I would have liked to see at least more of the positive side of that from where we leave him in the past. I didn't expect that they were going to get to live their lives out forever; that was kind of never in the cards. But they did leave Yai, in particular, in a pretty melancholy place, and I'm not sure how intentional that was, that that was the full impression we were left with.

NiNi

Given that it's Tee, I'm feeling like that was pretty intentional. Tee…the ending’s always bittersweet. It's never 100% one thing or another when it comes to Tee. He's always going to leave you somewhere that's just kind of like, “Yeah, there's good here, but also life is what it is.” I feel like I just generally probably have more tolerance for that when it comes to these kinds of stories. 

Like Ginny said, you know from the beginning that they're not gonna live out their whole lives together in 1928. The way the story is set up, it's just not possible that that's a thing that's gonna happen. So for me, thinking about the life that Yai lives after Jom leaves, it's not necessarily melancholy for me? He was definitely lonely and I wonder what that must have been like for him. It's more of a curiosity for me than a melancholy. 

I am a person who is very into loneliness and stories about loneliness. And so, leaving 1928 Yai alone in 1928, and having him have to deal with his loneliness for the rest of his life, that actually does not bother me. It doesn't make me feel sad necessarily, because I don't necessarily see loneliness as an inherently sad thing. I think loneliness is loneliness, and it can be sad, and it can be other things. 

The idea of Yai having had this great love and deciding that he doesn't want another one, basically because he's chosen at that point, “I don't want to do this again,” and devoting his life to other things from what we understand from what we get at the end of this story. Him having basically his memories of Jom for the rest of his life, but no other great love. This is something that my mind actually enjoys conceiving of and considering, but then I have some very different feelings about loneliness as somebody who spent a lot of time alone in romantic and non-romantic situations.

Ben

I would be probably less bothered about it if it was more like Brokeback Mountain. If the tragedy that separated them was mundane and contemporary, I would probably be less annoyed than this supernatural phenomenon, that we still have no real handle on, being the reason that they come together and are torn apart. That component of it is bothersome for me because I don't know why these things have to happen to Jom. 

It's fine to choose not to be bothered about it or not care about it, but I really hate speculative fiction stories where the supernatural component only matters in so much as it generates drama to get big moments, and doesn't feel like it's as much of a player in the story as the people there. I'm very frustrated with I Feel You Linger in the Air, because I don't know why Jom has to suffer like this. I can enjoy Jom and Yai's romance, but I don't know why this story wants Jom to suffer this way, and for the people Jom loves to suffer.

NiNi

Ginny, do you have a conception or a narrative in your head about the why, or does a conception of the why matter to you in the story? For Ben, it's incredibly important, and him not having a conception of the why is sort of a barrier between him and the story.

Ben

If you're gonna send my Black ass to the past to become a slave, there better be a goddamn fucking reason for it.

NiNi

[laughs] I hear you, I hear you.

Ginny

As far as the mechanic, I don't need that, and I don't want that, because the story was set up with this very kind of spooky vibe, which immediately put me in a place of like, bigger than human stuff happens in this story, and we're not gonna make that make sense. That's not the kind of story we're in. But the narrative that I do see is the reincarnations and the fact that this is a love happening over three versions of Yai that have loved Jom, and the Yai that we experience for almost all of this story is the second of those, so he has already some immediate instinctive connection to this strange man who's shown up, and he kind of just goes, “Oh, this person is important to me. I've already had dreams about him. I'm gonna see what this is about.” 

Why does he have to suffer like this? Because that's the story. I get what you're saying, but this is very baked into the genre and it's baked into the fundamental setup that this is gonna be a story about separation and about yearning across centuries. Those are the emotions that the story wants to deal with.

NiNi

It's fascinating for me because, as somebody who's been very steeped, as I said, in historical romance in the way that I've been steeped in historical romance and the type of historical romance that I've read across my life, you're right. It didn't even occur to me to question the why. This is the ticket for the ride. This is the price of admission. You just accept that this is the premise and you go from there. So, the idea of there being a conception of the why, it didn't even really come to my thinking on this show until Ben pointed it out. 

In a story like this, the mechanics of the time travel are by nature a McGuffin, because they're not actually important to the thematic underpinnings of the story. The thematic underpinnings of the story in this case come from the characters and who they are, and Jom being from the future is part of that. Jom being this person who has lived this life in this particular time and being thrown into another time. That's where the thematic underpinning comes from. Not because of the “Why is this happening to him?” and all that kind of stuff. Even though maybe some of that stuff may come out if they get to continue the story—maybe, maybe not—because I don't see that as being something that Tee would be particularly interested in. I don't necessarily see it as something that's, for me, critical to the telling of the story.

Ben

It's because they sent him to the future. I don't think I would have cared about it if Jom had just vanished, and then he had just woken up even further in the past, and been like, “Oh, fuck,” looks at the camera, and then they end. I would have been okay then. I would have been like, “Well, we still don't understand why Jom is hopping. Perhaps the reset in another time frame will help us see that.” 

By sending him back to the future, letting him eat crepes and hang out with Jeed, who was Ueangphueng in the past, it made me think, “Well, what the fuck was the point of all that?” You sent him to the past, he made some friends, they got the gang together and unmasked the villain, they had some great sex, they had some sad sex, and now he's back in the future. And Not!Yai walks in, confusing the absolute fuck out of us, and then they roll credits. And then they throw on a tag, because they might get a second season. 

A huge knock for the show for me was being fully-reliant on novel spoilers, which were posted by the distributor of the novel, as well as given by the cast to audiences. That's not great! A good ending makes me go back to the beginning and then I want to reflect on the whole journey. I got stuck in the ending of all of this going, “Well, what the fuck was the point of everything I just watched? Why did any of this have to happen?” I don't like getting stuck at the end. I don't know what they want to say about everything that's going on. The whole for me is not greater than the sum of its parts, and it has some really good parts. 

I think Nonkul and Bright do a great job playing the romance between Jom and Yai. I thought it was interesting to see a male gay couple and a female gay couple next to each other, and how that presents in this particular time frame. I really liked Ming and the other servants because most of them are honestly not that homophobic, which reflects a lot of historical context. Poor people did not care about what other poor people were doing. I liked the whole notion of a bunch of homos and their friends get together and they can take on fucking anybody! 

I think episode 11, where Jom realizes he's disappearing and tells Yai, and there's this somberness that grips the show as they have to grapple with Jom's functionally-terminal illness, and they go through the process of saying goodbye to the people who mattered to them reflects an AIDS experience that I am unfortunately familiar with. That was really well done. 

There's all of this great stuff all over this show that I don't feel like really spins together into something transcendent. I just have a show with a lot of pieces that I think are really spectacular. But I don't think the show itself is.

00:21:35 Depictions of Intimacy

NiNi 

Let's talk about some of those pieces. Ginny, let's talk about the intimacy—let's start there. Let's talk about the intimacy through the story, the intimacy within the relationships, and then the particular scenes that you and I have been trying to sink our teeth into. 

Ginny 

I think I said already that initially the romance between Jom and I did not grab me. I didn't feel like their courtship had a lot of juice to it, but once they reached that point of really being in each other's orbit and being close to each other, every scene was just giving so much intensity. Mutual desire, mutual interest. So much tenderness. The way that they look at each other and touch each other is beautiful—some of the best chemistry and intimacy we've seen in a long time, I think. 

Ben 

The oil scene in, what, episode 6? 

Ginny 

They've definitely not had sex yet, but the attraction is clear and understood on both sides. There's this scene where Yai is rubbing himself with oil as just, like, skin care, and Jom starts helping him. And then you cut, and you see Jom in his room looking so worked up, and then he starts to rub the oil on himself, and you see that what's happened is Jom and Yai had this moment where he's doing this massage and it was interrupted because Yai was like, “This is too much.” 

And so Jom is processing this, and very clearly implied is jerking off to this experience. And the music is so intense, and the framing is so intense, and you're intercutting between the scene with the two of them and the massage and Jom by himself. It's one of the most intensely sensual scenes that we've gotten ever, and it's done so artistically. They thought about “How are we going to frame this?” and “How do we want to tell the story of what just happened between these two men and how they both feel about it?” It's so creatively gorgeous and intense in a way that I don't see applied to intimacy scenes, and I just wanted to smooch everybody involved in it, because it was beautiful and wonderful, and I want to see more like that always. 

NiNi 

The way that this show filmed sex and intimacy. Ben always talks about being tasteful, but also being explicit enough for there to be an understanding that what is happening here is sex between men, and it is different from other kinds of sex. I was just kind of blown away by the creativity of it: the way that it was shot, the way that it was scored, the way that it is choreographed, the way that the emotion is built between the actors. 

Ginny’s right, I haven't seen anything like this. 

Ben 

The only other creator who consistently gets here when it comes to sex…probably MAME? Maybe? Like, it's kind of goofy when she does it. 

Ginny

MAME is different, and I am a bit of a MAME apologist, and I love her intimacy scenes, but there's something about the creative layers that are put on top of this that really speak to me. This show did so much without being very visually explicit; being so deeply sensual, without showing you very much at all. You're seeing skin and you're seeing touching, but that's not what's driving the emotion. It's the music and it's the filming choices that are making this experience so sensual, rather than just the sight of bodies and the way they're touching each other. And it was really striking. 

Ben 

The intimate moments themselves are not here for pure titillation. There is a strong dramatic component to each scene, which is helping the characters and the audience cope with the current struggle happening between the boys. The first scene with the oil, that was the first time that Yai was close to honest about his physical desire for Jom. 

Ginny 

They definitely both know at that point. I don't remember what specifically has been said, but it's been made clear between them that Yai is interested in Jom, because Jom goes into that scene kind of expecting, “Oh, is this going to lead to sex?” He thinks that's what's gonna happen, and maybe Yai did, too, but kind of got overwhelmed, or we're not sure exactly what happened that he stopped it. 

Ben 

I'm sure! Don't worry!

Ginny

[Ginny laughs]

Ben’s sure. What happened, Ben? 

Ben 

I'm just gonna get edited. [NiNi laughs] I'm glad you're here. That boy made a mess of his damn pants because he busted unexpectedly—[Ginny laughs]—and got embarrassed, and didn't know what to do, because he definitely spent too much time thinking about it because all he does is read trashy romance novels. 

[Ginny laughs]

NiNi 

I've forgotten about the romance novel that he made Jom read to him. 

Ben 

Which Jom hated!

[everyone laughs]

NiNi 

But you know what it is with the intimacy scenes? They somehow managed to be incredibly sensual, but not earthy?

Ben 

They got sensual without being as erotic as maybe they felt. I like when the actors get to give the audience what they want and need without you basically making the actors shoot porn. Bright and Nonkul are extremely professional. We don't always get too deep into the behind the scenes stuff, but we can see in the BTS we got that these two guys understood what they needed to accomplish in their scenes, which are very well choreographed ahead of time. And that's, I think, what really goes here is they're not just relying on actors being willing to just do shit. There's a specific intent that they're going for. So we get all of the effect we need, and it doesn't feel clumsy. 

NiNi 

Another thing I really loved about the intimacy in the show is how it builds from scene to scene. The other thing I like watching when I'm talking about sex in stories is tracking the emotional journey through the sexual journey. This show, I think, was really good at that, because every time we got an intimate scene between Jom and Yai, it was at a different stage of the relationship. The intimacy wanted to show us something different. It reveals something different about where the characters are, where their relationship is. When the dam finally breaks and Jom and Yai just start making out in the rain.

I talk about the show being a big damn romance. That moment is probably the most big damn romance moment in the entire show. It is epic. There's no other word to describe this moment. How it happens, how it’s shot, everything about it makes it even feel epic. There's this sense of inevitability. There's a sense of desperation. And then that carries through into the sex scene. 

You come out to that scene and you're going into other scenes where things are quieter once they become more established, you can chart the emotions that you're supposed to be feeling about both the characters and the relationship through these scenes. And there aren't that many of them. They do a great job of building the intimacy and you understanding that they have this incredibly intense physical relationship without spending a lot of time on intimate scenes. As much as I enjoy seeing those scenes and parsing those scenes through the lens of the story, the fact that they don't have that many of them to me is also an accomplishment because they're able to tell that story without necessarily making their actors take their clothes off and make out all the time. 

00:30:21 Head v. Heart 

NiNi 

The way that I feel about this show is so visceral. Ben talks a lot about rarely having heart shows, about being very analytical about the things that he watches. For me, this show…I'm not as deep into the analyzing of it as maybe Ben is. And Ginny, I don't know which side of that line that you land on. 

Ginny 

I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I try to sit wherever a show is gonna give me its best, so I'll love to analyze the show if it seems to really be inviting that. But this one, like you said, it's a big damn romance, and so much of what it's doing is just creating those moments. So I was enjoying sitting in those. 

That kissing in the rain scene that you talked about, that was incredible. What happens immediately before that is the dance that Yai has to do with this very eligible girl, and the fantasy dance that Yai and Jom have—which is just a gutting scene. I think I did cry. Everybody is surrounding them and admiring the way that they are doing in real life for Yai and this girl, and it's the agony of what they should be able to have and can't. 

This is a show that wants to dig into those pain points and I can see where for some of us who have lived that pain, it's not something that you want to sign on to. For others of us, it's like, “Yes, make me feel this thing. Take me through this in this fictional space.” We get that excruciating contrast of the publicly-affirmed love that Jom and Yai aren't allowed to have, and then we go from that right to this private, powerfully intimate moment between them. 

NiNi 

We talk a lot on this show about lenses and reads; who you are and where you sit being an integral part of how you look at the shows, how you take them in, what you get from them, and what you put back out. I think this is a show that for each of us, because we're coming at it from a different lens and with a different read, we had three kind of distinct almost experiences of it. 

I don't have a head response to this show, so Ben talking about the why of the time travel—I just wasn't thinking about it like that. My head wasn't in it to that extent in terms of analyzing. This was strictly my feels, and I had a lot of feels from the minute that Jom sat down behind the market and stress-ate that sausage. I had a lot of feels! [laughs]

Ben 

This is always going to be the struggle I have. I don't swoon. So while I do appreciate how good Bright and Nonkul are, particularly Nonkul—I had very positive responses to what he was doing. I don't ever get heart shows where I just sigh at them and like, that's it. 

The first 43 minutes of this final episode are fine. I think they accomplished that part really well. I don't have a lot of complaints about that chunk of the finale. If we end there, and then go straight to the tag, I'm probably fine with this show and having a different conversation. But Jom ending up back in the water, getting snatched by a scuba diver, and I'm like, “How the fuck did he get out there so fast?” If we're jumping right back to that moment, it's the middle of the fucking night.

[NiNi laughs]

I didn't have to care this much about the specifics until suddenly I was thrown off, and now I'm having to ask fucking questions. So Jom gets rescued and then we have all this shit in the present. And we don't spend a great deal of time there with Jom grappling with what the fuck happened to him. It's just: jumps back. “Oh, right! Jeed was Ueangphueng! We haven't talked about that in 11 episodes!” Okay, sure. Ohm is here? Why? Okay, right, right. In the actual world they're from, Ohm showed up, broke up with Jom, and within six hours he drove into the fucking river. I get it. Okay, right. That's what happened. Sure. Let's deal with that. Yeah, okay. I don't care. Go home. All right. Goodbye, Ohm. BYE!

Jom is sad because he misses Yai—valid—and then he finds the box. We have a really cool moment around the box. I really love the letter, but then there's Future!Yai and I'm like, “What the fuck is he?” [Ben sighs] I hate all of this shit at the end. It feels distracting. Why does he have to go back to the future to tie up shit from his present, to then suddenly be thrown back to the fucking past? 

NiNi 

If I am putting my head bits on, which I am very reluctant to do with this show to be quite honest with you, because I enjoyed it so much… The only thing that maybe doesn't entirely fit is the third version of Yai at the end. ‘Cause I can see why they bring Jom back to the future. There's all this stuff that happens there that for me emotionally resonates, both the stuff with Ohm and then him opening the chest and finding the letter, and getting to see his despair and his loneliness without Yai. And then a version of Yai turning up without explanation? Okay. Yeah. Okay, fine, doesn't bother me, but I was literally deep in my feelings at that point. 

I can understand also why at that moment happens and why it's not explained. Who wants to end their story on an exposition dump? Nobody. 

Ben 

You got the catharsis you needed at the 43 minute mark and you were able to just walk away with that. When they kept talking after that for another 45 minutes, it caused problems for me. When we talked about other shows we've had on this podcast, we can talk about how, like, there's a lot of good shit but for you, it didn’t hit you in the chest? 

This is where I sit with this show. It's good. I don't feel it. 

NiNi 

I got you. 

00:37:37 Beyond the Romance and Story Integration

Ben 

All right, now that we have covered the main stuff, and all of the oil scenes, and the sad sex, let's talk about the rest of the cast. According to book readers, much of the cast of characters around them was greatly expanded for this production. Since Tee and them clearly cared a lot about them, let's talk about them. 

Let's start with Ohm/Khamsaen, Fongkaew and…Preggers… [laughs] I don't remember what her name is. She got on my damn nerves. 

[Ginny laughs]

NiNi 

Did we ever get her name? 

Ben 

According to MDL, it's Khaimuk, but I don't remember it being said. 

Ginny 

Yeah, I'm not sure they ever said it, which says somethin’. 

NiNi 

Ginny said, “Whoop there it is.”

[NiNi and Ginny laugh] 

Ben 

I will say that I liked the bits with Khamsaen in the past where he doesn't actually know who Jom is. He's just pissed at Jom for having no sense of class solidarity at all, and gets in his face about this. He's like, “You're fuckin’ up my bag, bro.” And Jom, who is going through his shit, beats the fuck out of this man. But then they, like, reconcile later? I actually kind of liked this. 

Ginny 

Yeah, I mean, I was with Jom and so in favor of him beating up that man, even though that man did not know what he had done, really, to deserve this. I was just still so mad at present-day Ohm so I was very ready to have Jom take it out on the past version of him, who had done nothing basically except be a little whiny about a girl. 

Ben 

I like Khamsaen’s perspective because you've got the rich people and all their bullshit-ass games, and I like how Khamsaen is just kind of a pampered mama's boy who's losing his shit because something horrible happened to the girl he cared about, and now she's in this really shitty situation, and he's just floundering and feeling super powerless because he doesn't feel like there's much he can do about that at this point. 

Ginny 

What they set up with Robert and the way that he wields power over his whole household and his two wives and everybody who gives a shit about them really leaves everybody feeling powerless and just kind of scrabbling around the edges for what they can get. Those early episodes really set up how under the thumb of this powerful rich man most of the people in their orbit are. That's just a giant boulder in the stream that they all have to flow around and figure out how to live their lives around. 

Ben 

The way that eventually unravels was kind of interesting for me, because there's this little mystery in this show about, how does Robert even get involved with this family in the first place? Why are they so intent on Robert? ‘Cause he kind of sucks and he seems like he's also bad at his job, which is to manage the forestry shit. He would much rather spend his time whipping Ming's ass, and Mings mom’s ass, or abusing his wives, than doing his fucking job. There's this whole bit with Fongkaew where we learn that while they were trying to cover up other awful things, they brutally murder Fongkaew’s father and injured her mom permanently? And that's how Fongkaew ended up in this household in the first place. 

Ginny 

Yeah, and it seems like she kind of knows that, and just has to live with it and live with being at this man's side who did that to her family, until she teams up with the other wife for the grand comeuppance. 

Ben 

We eventually learned that Ueangphueng and Mei conspired to bring Fongkaew into the house in the hopes that she would distract Robert. And they own that that was really fucked up, and they apologized for it. 

Ginny 

The way that his power makes everybody underneath him turn on each other and use each other as shields, and recognizing that that's not okay to do, but also you understand why they did that in that position. 

Ben 

You get the sense because all these characters had to be built out for the show. They were concerned about how these characters were interrelated to each other. I like the Robert character even though I despise him because I feel like they considered his role really well in the 1920s part. 

NiNi 

One of the things that came up to me while the show was airing was how it's kind of important, given Thailand's position in this era, that Robert is French and James is English, Thailand is never colonized, but the French were to the east in Vietnam and the English to the West. It's pincered between colonial powers, but it was never colonized itself. It was kind of like a buffer zone. Some of that feeling does come through in the way that the era is portrayed. There's clearly a lot of influence that they're getting from these colonial powers without actually being colonized themselves, and that comes through particularly in the character of the dad. 

He feels like somebody who is important, not in the sense of “I am important because these powers say I am important, but I have a sense of importance in myself.” I don't know how to explain it to people who are not from places that were colonized, but it gave it verisimilitude for me anyway. 

Ginny 

Clearly, so much of what he wanted to do with this project was bring in some of those historical perspectives and the sociological and political stuff. And I thought he did a really good job overall of putting that in the story in a way that felt natural and felt like it fit. 

NiNi 

There is a fair amount of political inside the story, which is very Tee. I also feel like, in a way, he almost didn't go far enough in terms of the way he normally likes to operate, because Tee, when it comes to this stuff, he's very in your face, and it felt oddly restrained. 

Ben 

One of the things that I remember seeing from Tee while we were watching this was that when they were trying to do research about this period, they did not have a lot of great primary sources of what life was like for not-the-ruling class at the time and so they were building out the world kind of based upon anthropological presumptions about the era. The one bit of this ‘happened during the era’ stuff we get is the piece of news delivered at the breakfast table about two women who were living together. It ends completely in tragedy. One of them is killed and the other maybe doesn't survive the grief. I don't remember exactly what happened to the other one, and it feels significant for me that Tee wanted to make sure he put living lesbians in this world, too, by building out this relationship between Ueangphueng and Mei, and then giving them the opportunity to leave and go do their own thing. 

NiNi 

That brings me to an interesting question. Tee was trying to accomplish a number of different things, I think, with this story. How do you feel the romance fit inside of the wider story that Tee was trying to tell? 

Ben 

Honestly, poorly. 

Ginny 

They did not feel super well integrated. The grace that it got for me was a lot due to how well the side characters that ended up involved in a, more political stories—Robert’s whole household. All those side characters were so nicely developed early in the series and I was so invested in them that I gave the story a lot of space to develop its different themes alongside each other, rather than having a ton of overlap. But from a story crafting perspective, they were not super well integrated. I would agree with that. 

Ben 

The big problem was their choice to make Jom so passive for most of the show. Part of why the episode 10 stuff doesn't exactly land for me is it didn't feel like Jom was as… active of a character I would have expected, given his obeisance to this system had felt like something he was affecting for survival, and not just something he just sort of slid into because he had been hurt, and then assaulted, and then hurt again right before all of this. I feel like him teaming up with James and everybody else would have landed because it would have felt like he was a mover in that world, and that his modern perspective would have mattered more. 

NiNi 

I feel like this is a consistent critique of Tee. This is something we talked about when we talked about Step by Step as well. The things that he actually cares about versus the vehicle that he's using to tell his story. There is always a tension there. I feel when it comes to Tee, you kind of have to choose your adventure. You have to choose which side of the story, I guess, you're gonna pay attention to. And because I always gravitate towards the romance, I think I have a different-slash-better time with a lot of Tee’s stories than others might. 

Ben 

I don't like that he does that, sincerely. I don't like when BL feels like three pitches fighting for relevance because somebody with money who liked all the pitches wanted to see them play out together. I really don't like the side quest feeling of this constant theme in Tee's work. I don't like the things being loosely connected via setting or… underlying theme he thinks he's building towards? It consistently irritates me in his work. 

NiNi 

I feel like, Ginny, you and I are more closely aligned sometimes when it comes to some of this stuff that Tee is coming out of, partly because we get the swoonies and Ben does not. 

Ben 

Y'all give me shit about New Siwaj. Y’all gonna eat this shit over Tee Bundit. 

NiNi 

[laughs] Ginny, how do you feel about that? Do you feel that underlying tension in Tee’s work, and how do you reconcile it? 

Ginny 

As much as I love the romance and the swoonies, I would love someone to give Tee a bucket of money to make the sociopolitical drama that it feels like he desperately wants to make. What it feels to me like is he has to put things through this BL lens because there is money there as a creator and there's an audience there. There could have been a stronger, more cohesive drama, but I liked both halves of what we got and I didn't feel like they were actively in conflict, and I'm easily pleased. So I was okay with it. 

Ben 

I think he gets away with it here, but I don't think it's good, not as a unified piece.

00:49:15 Anticipating the Special (Or Not)

NiNi

So, there's gonna be a special! The special is not part of the timeline of the show, it's a non-canon kind of AU, not quite AU thing. Are you guys going to be watching this special?

Ginny

Probably. Yeah. 

NiNi

Ginny's like, who am I kidding? Yes, I'm watching it. [laughs]

Ginny

Yeah.

NiNi

Ben? 

Ben

I am genuinely uncertain. 

NiNi

I think I’m not going to watch it. I'm so emotionally immersed in this story? I don't think I'm interested in a time-out-of-time, non-canon AU. 

Ginny

Well, I'll tell you both how it is. 

NiNi

Please do. 

Ben

[laughs] I just don't know that I care! I like Nonkul and Bright well enough, so I'm not opposed to seeing them bro it out, I guess. 

NiNi

To me, the story between these two got so emotionally deep, I don't want to watch them have hijinks. 

[Ginny laughs]

Ben

It feels unearned. The story’s not complete. I would be okay with a “present Yai and Jom get to go to the fair and have a good time,” if this was coming after the second section with the Commander. 

Ginny

I do kind of agree with that. I will still watch it.

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Ben

Even though I did not like this show as much as NiNi, I am not saying that this show is bad and people shouldn't watch it or enjoy it. But… I don't really want to return to this show. That's the real thing here. We got the tag about the Commander and I was like, “ehhh… do I want them to get a second season?” I kind of don't. I don't know that I want to go back to this. I don't think I care enough. 

NiNi

I am curious about two things. One, this is a period of Thai history that we haven't seen in BL. We're now getting into Thai history and BL, period, and as a person who is kind of a history junkie, I want to see what that looks like. Then the other part of it is, they can't go back to the same dynamic, right? So it's not gonna be a retread of the 1928 story. This has to be a different story because… Mustache Yai is a different character from 1928 Yai. And Jom, having been through the experience of meeting and falling in love with Yai and being separated from Yai, is also going to be a bit of a different character going into this? 

So this is not the exact two same people having the exact same story, if they do this. This is two different people figuring out a different dynamic, a different story. And I am actually interested to see that, because I am impressed with the acting. And because I have been impressed with the writing. So for me, that's where I'm landing. I want the second season because I want to see that. 

Ben

Well, I hope the Quantum Leap BL does a better job closing itself out next time. 

NiNi

[laughs] So mad at you for calling it Quantum Leap. What about you, Ginny, you gonna watch season 2? If there is a season 2?

Ginny

Oh, definitely. I don't think the story is complete as it is. I think they tied it up enough, and that's where—I needed us to see modern Yai, because that tells us if we never get a season 2, there is a Yai and a Jom that can live out their life in the same timeline, and I need that for my peace of mind. There's a happy ending out there sometime—and hopefully we'll get to see the story take them there. But I did want to at least know that it's there for them. 

But I don't think it's complete as it stands. So for that reason alone, I want the second season. I don't… know that I have a lot of faith in how good it will be? So I'm also nervous? But I'm also not afraid of bad television, so I do want there to be a second season, and I will watch it. 

00:54:08 Final Thoughts

NiNi 

Ginny, what did you score I Feel you Linger in the Air, and why? 

Ginny 

Why did I give it a 9? I agree with Ben that the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. That's a really fair and accurate way to sum it up. The ending, I think, failed in execution? I don't disagree with any of the choices that it made about what happened, but I think it could have done better with the timing. I think a little bit more explanation would have been good. 

So there were some misses. But I liked so many of the parts so much, so I gave it a 9. 

NiNi 

And what about you? Where do you sit? 

Ben 

I gave this show a 9. My ranking system is almost always about whether or not a show can be recommended to viewers, and so it becomes a 9 because it's the kind of show that BL viewers can have a very good time with, and it's the kind of show that recent converts might have a good time with? But the failures in execution from episode 10 and 12 hamper this show getting a higher score from me. It's a 9 because the parts of the show that are good are some of the best we've seen this year, but the parts that are not are frustrating in ways that also feel fair, and I kind of hate that, too. 

They hedged on the finale because they hadn't gotten really greenlit for a second season. Okay, I understand the awkward place you were in. But modern Yai is probably the biggest mistake I think they made. I think they were afraid the audience would be like me and would be really put off by how unhappy that finale is, and so they threw modern Yai at us to make people feel better—but I didn't like it. 

But I think the show is really, really watchable. I think it's really beautiful. I think it's a great example of what Thai production teams are capable of. I think it's also a really good showcase of what Thai talent is capable of. I think across the board the entire cast is really solid, even with my issues with the lack of conviction at the end of this series, I think this was an excellent show. 

NiNi

I gave this show a 9.5. This show is incredibly expansive. There's so much that's happening in this story that I really found resonant. I feel like I felt all of the emotions that the show wanted me to feel. I followed that emotional throughline and it was an incredibly easy emotional throughline for me to follow. I didn't feel like I had to qualify my emotions when I was watching the show. If something on the screen was meant to be making me happy, it was making me happy. If something on the screen was meant to be making me feel sad it made me feel sad. There wasn't a tension between what I was feeling and what I felt like the show wanted me to feel. As a person who is very much into the fields and the vibes, it was a 9.75. 

I feel like in terms of shows that we scored really highly and say that we actively like this is probably the most critical we've been of something that we have scored highly? 

Ben 

There are times when a show is genuinely good but doesn't hit every note that well, and you're going to hear it and you're going to go, “Oof. We definitely downloaded this from Limewire.” And—

NiNi 

[laughs] Benjamin!

Ben 

And—Look, I can never hear a very specific song from Third Eye Blind correctly because the track I had was a fucked up clip [laughs] from Limewire for years that had two different skips in it. 

NiNi

Oh my God. You can’t say Limewire! The children don't know what that is. 

Ben 

I do not care about these fucking kids. [laughs] And so…

NiNi 

[laughs] Ginny, Ben said “Fuck them kids.” 

Ben 

So, the thing can be good and still be criticized. Criticism is not inherently negative. This show took multiple huge swings and missed some of them, and I think it's totally fine to acknowledge that the show did not hit every swing it took, even if we can applaud the swings that it went for. I think it's still good to take big swings even if you don't hit them. 

Ginny 

Yeah, I would rather watch a dozen shows that swing big and don't hit the mark than a dozen shows that are kind of boring and self-contained, and do fine at executing an easy thing. 

NiNi 

Okay, so the average of 9, 9, and 9.75 is some kind of messy number between 9 and 9.75 closer to the 9 side of things, because that's how maths works. I'm not going to try to actually calculate that number. It can get a 9 from The Conversation. 

Ben 

It's 9.25. 

NiNi 

9.2—look at, look at Ben!

Ginny 

Ben's like, “The math is simple actually, Madam.”

NiNi

So I Feel You Linger in the Air gets a 9.25 from The Conversation, and hopefully a commitment from Ginny that if they do come up with the second season, you're gonna be right back here on the pod talking with us about it. 

Ginny

Absolutely.

NiNi

There we go. That's gonna wrap us up on our Swoon episode, our I Feel You Linger in the Air episode. We out. Say “bye,” Ginny. 

Ginny

Bye! 

NiNi

Say “bye” to the people, Ben. 

Ben

Peace.

#podcast #lgbtq #i feel you linger in the air #thai bl #bl series #winter series #season 5 #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation